Forever and always
by Evapopefan56
Summary: Rachel and her sister haven't spoken in years, when she dies suddenly however Rachel has to look after her two young daughters
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was 2 weeks since Rachel had found out her sister had died. It was strange she she hadn't seen her in so long, not for about 5 years when they'd had a massive argument and vowed never to speak again. However since it had happened Rachel's life just didn't seem to be the same anymore she'd cried so much after she'd found out about it and she didn't think she'd ever be able to forgive herself for not making it up to her.

Rachel was at her study trying to concentrate but she could feel herself staring out the window and a tear forming in her eye.

Suddenly the phone started ringing bringing her to her senses. She sighed before getting up off her chair and going over to answer it.

"Hello" she said her voice sounding a little strained and tired

"Hi is this Rachel"

"It is yes"

"Look I'm sorry to bother you and what I'm going to say will probably come as a bit of a shock, it's just you're our last hope"

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked pretty confused by now

"Well after your sister died, the girls had to be taken into foster care for a bit, I'm there social worker, obviously we would have preferred to place them with family but we know she didn't have any close relationships with any of her family. But well things at the foster parents house didn't really work out and we want to place them with someone as soon as possible, obviously you're under no obligation but..."

"It's fine they can come here"

"Are you sure about that it's a big decision"

"Look however bad things got between me and my sister I'm still the girls auntie and I'm hardly going to turn them away"

"Well that's fantastic news, is it okay if I bring them over today along with a hell of a lot of paperwork say about 5, that'll give you some time to get sorted for them coming"

"Yeah no problem"

Rachel then put the phone down, it took a while for it to sink in. Melissa had 2 girls though she'd only ever got to know Holly who was 10 now, and that was only for the first 4 or 5 years of her life so she doubted holly would remember her now, she'd met ivy who had just turned 5 but only when she was a baby

She wondered what it would be like having them here, she wasn't really sure what to do with children when they were as young as ivy. she knew she'd have to clear out 2 of the spare rooms for them. She'd always had a big house but sometimes it did get lonely just by herself so it'd be nice to have 2 of the spare rooms filled up for a changed.

After a little while Rachel went upstairs and started clearing the big spare room out. She hoped it would be okay for holly it had a big double bed and bathroom but it was still pretty boring with just plain white walls, she'd never bothered doing the spare rooms before as the only time she'd ever use them was when she had friends staying over and so they really didn't see much point.

It took her about half an hour to get that room sorted before she moved into the one that would become Ivy's. Rachel spent a lot longer clearing this one out because over the last year she'd started using it more of a storage space than anything so there was a lot of junk to clear out.

Rachel then began to wonder if she should get some shopping in as her fridges were pretty empty and the girls would need tea when they got in so she got in her car and drove to tescos. She ended up going a bit mad with the food, but at least it meant she didn't have to go shopping for a while. Rachel then wondered if maybe she should get some bits for the girls as she wasn't sure what they had. She went to the clothes isle and got some new pyjamas for them both before going to pay.

Once she'd finished shopping she got back in the car and realised it was actually getting quite late

As soon as she got home she quickly unpacked the shopping before cleaning round a bit.

Samantha-the girls social worker was helping them pack their stuff up.

"Come on you two we don't want to be late for your auntie Rachel do we?"

"Do we have to go to her" holly asked sounding quite scared "mum said she was really horrible and shouts lots and lots"

"I'm sure she'll be fine, you're very lucky she's agreed to take you two on"

"Is she very scary" ivy asked sounding really small and afraid

"Of course not come on we need to get going"

The two of them got in the car and sam started driving

"Remember ivy you've got to try and be really good" holly said "I know she's really strict but we can't end up getting kicked out or they'll split us up"

"I'll try" ivy mumbled

By the time they were there ivy was in tears because she felt so scared.

"Ivy stop that silly crying" Samantha said a little too firmly "she'll be fine I promise"

After a bit of coaxing ivy got out but she was trembling quite a bit.

They walked up to the door and sam knocked

A moment later Rachel opened the door, it was so weird seeing holly and ivy stood there.

"Hi girls why don't you all come in"

The three of them walked inside and took their shoes off

Rachel looked at ivy, she couldn't believe she was 5 as she looked quite a bit younger, she also noticed she just have been crying because she had red rings round her eyes

"Do you want me to show you up to your rooms girls, so you can start putting all your things away while I have a chat with Samantha"

The two of them followed Rachel upstairs where she showed them to their rooms. As they were walking up the two of them were quite surprised by how nice Rachel was being as she didn't seem as nasty as their mum had made out though they thought this was maybe because Samantha was there.

Both girls couldn't believe how big there rooms were here as they were loads bigger than back home

Rachel then went back downstairs and into the kitchen where Samantha was sat

"Thanks so much for this" she said

"Like I said it really isn't any trouble, it's a big adjustment but I dare say we'll all get used to it and get along fine"

"It's so good to hear you say that especially after what happened at their foster parents house"

"Why what happened"

Samantha sighed knowing she wasn't really supposed to go into details but she couldn't really not do now

"Well it was ivy more than anything, she's such a sensitive little thing and after her mum died I think it's just hit her really hard, she didn't settle too well at their house and she was keeping them awake most of the night in floods of tears, to be honest they never really seemed the maternal sort though If you ask me they got into fostering for all the wrong reasons but anyway they couldn't cope with her and sent them both packing"

"What on earth did they expect when they had a girl who'd just lost her mum. God that's awful, the poor girls. All this upheaval must be so hard for them, they must be really unsettled"

"They are especially poor little ivy" Samantha said "I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing but whatever you do go easy on any bad behaviour she doesn't take getting told off at all well"

"Yes of course i will, she doesn't look the type to do much wrong anyway"

"She doesn't really she's just so sensitive she burst into tears the other day because I told her off for sucking her thumb, but I think Melissa was always so hard on them both Whenever they did anything wrong"

The two of them chatted for ages as Rachel was signing some paperwork and it ended up being about 7 before Samantha left.

Rachel felt starving and knew the girls must be two so quickly put some pizzas in the oven, before going upstairs to see the girls.

She found them both in Holly's room, ivy was sat on Holly's knee and it looked as though they'd both been crying

"Are you two okay" she asked gently

"Yes thankyou" holly replied

Rachel sighed before going and sitting on the bed

"I know how hard this must be for you two, and anything you need you just tell me okay, but I know that's hard when you don't know me very well at all even though I am your auntie and I also know how difficult it is settling in somewhere new but give it a few days and everything will seem so much more familiar" Rachel said "I've got some pizzas on is that okay?"

"Yes miss " holly replied, she wasn't sure how to address her properly and she didn't want to get into trouble so it just sort of slipped out

"Miss? Ok let's get one thing straight I'm not your teacher and we're not at school, so we'll have no more of that's okay, it's auntie Rachel, just Rachel or Rach, whatever suits I answer to most things but certainly not miss, I get enough of that at school"

Rachel then went back down and called them about 10 minutes later when she'd got everything out

The two girls came down a few minutes later and sat at the table

Holly was feeling really hungry by now and ate hers immediately however when ivy took a bite she felt her stomach go all funny. Suddenly she started thinking about her mummy and tears began to form in her eyes but she forced herself not to cry

Rachel saw the tears in her eyes, she didn't know what to do or how to comfort her properly.

"Ivy come outside with me a second"

Ivy didn't really know what to do but followed her auntie outside and stood in the hall

Rachel wrapped her arms around her and ivy relaxed into her and started crying even though she didn't know her aunt properly and from what she did know she sounded very scary but at the moment she just really needed a cuddle

"I do understand how scary it is coming here and how unsettled you must feel but I promise everything's going to work out okay, you'll get used to it here" she said tucking a piece of Ivy's hair behind her ear

"Okay" ivy sobbed

Rachel gave her a quick hug before standing up

"Are you going to try and eat some pizza? Or have you had enough"

"I feel a bit sick" ivy mumbled

"Oh dear" Rachel said "you look really tired though so how about we pop you in the bath and then bed you might feel a bit more relaxed after a good nights sleep"

"Yeah"

Rachel went into the kitchen and told holly where they were going

She led ivy upstairs and started running a bath for her

Ivy went and sat in her bed while Rachel ran if, she hated feeling so unrelaxed all the time, and began to wonder if she'd ever feel settled again, she certainly didn't at her foster parents house and she felt terrified here after all the things her mum had told her about her auntie.

Once it was done Rachel walked over to her room and went in

"Are you going to come and have a quick bath love?"

Ivy nodded before following her through

Ivy didn't start getting undressed as she was waiting for Rachel to leave

"Take your stuff off then sweetie or do you need a hand" Rachel said

Ivy didn't say anything just stood there

"Oh did you...did you want me to go?" Rachel asked however she didn't really want to leave Ivy to just get on with it

"I don't mind"

"Well I'll stay in with you then" Rachel said

Ivy then took her clothes off and got in the bath

"So have you been going to school when you've been with your foster parents?" Rachel asked

She was unsure about what to do about school tomorrow as she thought it might be best to let the girls get settled in first however she also felt it might be easier to do this if they got a proper routine sorted

"Yes sue said that is get in the way If she let me stay off"

"Did she? Well how do you feel about going in tomorrow?" She asked

"Okay"

Ivy really didn't want to go in tomorrow as she hadn't been having a very nice time there at all since her mum died and she kept getting very upset, the teacher had tried talking to sue about it however she'd never seemed very bothered and had told ivy not to be such a baby

"We'll see how you feel in the morning then"

Once Rachel had bathed her she wrapped a big fluffy towel around her before drying her hair off

Rachel then got some pyjamas out of Ivy's drawer and got her changed

"Let's go and brush your teeth sweetie"

Ivy brushed her teeth carefully and then put her toothbrush back, she realised that she had to go to the toilet quite badly, she hadn't been since she'd got here as she'd been too scared to go but now she was getting a bit desperate but still didn't want to ask.

She followed Rachel back to her room, but Rachel noticed her looking all uncomfortable and fidgety

"Ivy do you have to go to the toilet love?"

Ivy nodded her head

"Go on then darling off you go"

Ivy quickly ran off to the toilet and came back a minute or so later

"Anything like that love you just go, don't ask or wait for me to say something okay"

Ivy nodded her head

"Good girl come on into bed then, do you need anything a glass of water or milk?"

"No thank you"

"Okay then in you hop"

Ivy got into bed and pulled the quilt up

"Are you comfy in there?"

"Yes"

"Good and if you need anything at all my bedroom is just outside yours so just come and get me"

"Okay" ivy mumbled still clearly very nervous

"Right well you try and get a good nights sleep love night night"

"Night night"

Rachel squeezed her shoulder gently before leaving

As soon as she did ivy began to cry a bit she felt so lonely at the moment and scared. She was kissing her mum lots and couldn't believe how everything had changed she was so happy one minute and now she kept getting dumped in different places.

All ivy wanted was her mum back but she knew she could never have this. She knew that it was all her fault that sue hadn't wanted the two of them so she was trying to be good here but she was finding it hard not to cry and act like a baby.

Rachel stepped into the kitchen and found holly tidying all the plates away after dinner

"oh love you didn't have to do that, but thankyou"

"It's okay"

"I was just asking ivy about school, how do you feel about going in tomorrow?"

"I'll go in I think"

"Okay if that's what you want, is it year 5 or 6 you're in now?"

"Year 5'

"Gosh I can't believe how fast you've grown up I remember when I used to pick you up when you'd just started in reception"

"I remember too...well sort of" holly said "Rachel please can I go to bed now I'm really tired"

"Yes love of course you can, go and get yourself sorted I'll be up in 5 minutes"

Rachel watched as she went up, she couldn't help but think neither of the girls seemed very relaxed at all they both seemed completely on edge all the time.

A couple of minutes later Rachel went up and into Holly's room

"Hey I've just come to say goodnight"

"Night Rachel, is it okay if I keep my light on for a bit please?"

"Yeah sure, remember if you're want to go to school in the morning you need a decent sleep so not too late okay"

"Yeah okay"

Once Rachel had said goodnight she went downstairs and watched some tv for a bit before going upstairs as after everything that had happened today she was feeling exhausted

Ivy had gone to sleep quite quickly but she woke up and started crying loads, she got so worked up she finished up being sick all over herself and that got her more upset because she knew she'd get into trouble and was scared Rachel would make them leave.

Rachel had just got into bed but had heard noises coming from Ivy's room next door so got up and checked it out.

She was shocked when she walked in and saw ivy in floods of tears

"Oh sweetheart" she said rushing over to her "why on earth didn't you come downstairs"

Ivy was sobbing really hard now so Rachel wrapped her arms around her

"Come on my love I think we need to pop you in the bath again don't we?"

When ivy got up she was all shivery and couldn't stand up property as Rachel got the sheets off her bed

Once she'd put them in the wash she took ivy into the bathroom and started running a bath

As soon as it was done she got her in but ivy was still crying loads

"What's the matter sweetheart? Are you not feeling very well"

"No" ivy sobbed "Holly's ...going to get mad with me" ivy cried but she was getting quite hysterical so couldn't speak properly

"Now why would Holly do that huh?

"Because it was my fault we got sent back last time and now it'll be my fault again"

"Darling what do you mean?"

"You'll send me back" ivy sobbed

"No love of course I wouldn't ever do that, why would you even think that?"

"Because I've been bad by getting upset"

"Ivy I'm not going to punish you for getting upset my love, and I'm certainly not going to make you go, I know it's a big adjustment but I want you to treat this like it's home and I want for you to feel relaxed here"

"So you're not angry"

"There's nothing for me to be angry about sweetie"

Rachel quickly got her washed before getting her out the bath and getting her dried

"I don't have any more pyjamas in my suitcase"

"Well you're in luck actually I picked some up from when I went shopping earlier"

"Thank you" ivy said before Rachel helped her get changed into them

"Are you sleepy or do you want to come and get a drink of something downstairs with me?" She asked

"Come downstairs" ivy said as she didn't think she'd be able to go to sleep if she went back to bed

Rachel took her hand and led her down, ivy then sat on the sofa as Rachel made them both some hot chocolate

When she came back she put ivy on her knee, ivy suddenly started crying and getting all upset again

"Oh sweetheart don't cry" she soothed "what's got you so upset, is it just because everything seems so strange?"

Ivy nodded her head and continued to cry "I'm really scared"

"What makes you so scared about here my love?"

Ivy didn't want to tell her so didn't say anything

"Is it me?" She asked

Ivy nodded her head slightly, hoping she wasn't going to get told off

"Oh dear I'm obviously a lot nastier than I mean to be if I end up frightening 5 year olds to death after meeting them for just a few hours"

"It's not that...mummy always used to tell me stuff about you"

"Ah"

"She said you don't like children very much and you lock naughty ones away in a cupboard and you have give smacks out"

"Right" Rachel said laughing slightly "darling I think you're mummy might have told you a few tall stories about me"

"So it's not all true"

"No ivy, you see in the job I do I work with children all the time, I'm a headmistress at a big school..and that does make me sound a bit scary I guess doesn't it? But the thing is if I was a really scary and mean person I don't think I'd stay in that school very long because nobody would like me very much"

"Oh" ivy said realising that Rachel couldn't be so bad after all

"So please don't be frightened of me sweetie"

Ivy finally relaxed into her, suddenly feeling all sleepy

"Are you ready for bed now my love?"

Ivy gave a small nod of the head

"Rachel did you hate mummy" ivy asked when the two of them were on their way upstairs

"No darling I didn't hate your mum at all, I loved her so much it's just sometimes grown ups can be very silly and have fall outs even if they normally get along so well"

The two of them then walked upstairs by ivy was very tired now

"Are you all ready for bed now then?"

Ivy nodded so Rachel led her back to her bedroom and got her tucked in

"There we go all nice and cosy"

"Rachel what if I start crying like I did before would you be angry?"

"No love I promise, I understand it's a very unsettling time for you, you need time to adjust properly"

"But sue used to get angry, she didn't like me it's all my fault me and holly got sent back that's why Holly's mad with me"

"I'm sure Holly's not mad with you and sue was wrong to get mad with you okay, none of this is your fault honestly ivy, and if you need anyone to talk to you just come straight to me"

"Okay" ivy said

"Do you want me to stay with you until you go to sleep"

"Yes please"

Rachel sat on the edge of her big double bed as ivy fell asleep.

Once she could tell she was fast asleep she went back to her own bedroom and fell asleep almost straight away, feeling tired out after everything that had happened today.

Holly woke up first the next day, she got a shock when she first woke up and looked round the room but then she remembered where she was.

She laid in bed for ages and started to feel really upset about everything, she hated the fact nothing seemed normal anymore and she couldn't just get up and go downstairs to watch tv like she used to

When she heard Rachel get up she went across to the bathroom to brush her teeth and go to the loo

Suddenly though she burst into tears and couldn't seem to stop crying

Rachel had noticed the bathroom door was still shut when she came back upstairs so went over

"Holly are you okay?"

"Yeah" holly mumbled

Rachel could tell she sounded really upset and this got her a bit worried but she left it for now

After a couple of minutes when she realised holly still hadn't come out she went over again only this time she could hear crying

"Holly come out sweetheart"

Holly was still crying quite a bit but realised she had to come out sooner or later so unlocked the door

As soon as Rachel saw her tearstained face she wrapped her arms around her so holly could cry into her

"Oh darling it's okay" she soothed "you're hurting every bit as much as ivy is aren't you?"

Rosie nodded her head

"But I promise everything's going to get better in time, it's okay to be upset you know"

"I just feel like I can't be upset because I've got to look after ivy and it'll get her more upset if she sees me upset"

"But sweetheart you're still just a little girl yourself really, you've only just turned 10, no one can expect you to be like a mum to ivy"

"I know I just feel like I have to be"

"Well you don't love, that's what I'm here for, not that I'll ever replace you're mum of course but I am going to try and do everything I possibly can for the two of you" she said "oh and by the way in contrast to what you're mums told about me smacking children shouting loads and what was the other thing ivy said? ...oh yeah locking you in cupboards, it's not exactly true so don't think you've been landed with a complete dragon okay"

Holly smiled a bit at this "okay"

"And I think the three of us should give school a miss today, just so we can all spend a bit of time and get used to one another"

"I didn't want to go in today anyway, I hate school at the moment"

"I know it must be tough on you, but it will get easier"

"I know thankyou Rachel"

"That's okay my love it's what I'm here for"

So I decided to start a new story hope you enjoyed it please review and let me know what you think xxxxxxxxx


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The girls had been there a couple of weeks now and were slowly starting to settle in to life at their aunties house and for the first time since their mum died were beginning to feel a bit calmer about everything now that they knew they were living with Rachel and knew she wasn't going to chuck them out like sue had.

It was very early on a Friday morning when holly woke up, despite the fact she was a lot calmer at home now she was still very unsettled about school and dreaded going in. She felt all nervous about going in today and despite it being only 3am she simply couldn't get back to sleep. Suddenly she realised she was desperate for the toilet so quickly got out of bed and went into the main bathroom. When she was sat on the toilet she suddenly found herself getting all teary about the thought of going to school today and sat there for a while just thinking about it.

When she was done she was about to go back to bed but didn't want to just lie there when she couldn't sleep so she crept downstairs and went into the living room.

Rachel had heard someone get up, even though she was sure it was just one of the girls going to the loo or getting a drink she always did like to check, as it wasn't uncommon for ivy especially to wake up in the middle of night and get all worked up.

She realised no one was in the bathroom so she was about to go back to bed but popped into Holly's room to check on her but noticed she wasn't there.

Feeling a bit worried now she looked around upstairs but couldn't fine her, so went downstairs.

Suddenly she noticed there was a light on in the living room so went in and found ivy curled up on the sofa cuddled into one of the cushions

"There you are, you had me worried when I realised you weren't nicely tucked up in bed like I thought you were"

"I'm sorry" holly mumbled

"That's okay darling, what are you doing down here though at this time at night or morning should I say"

Holly didn't want to explain but then a few tears started to fall down her face and once they started she couldn't stop them. Rachel immediately went over so she could put her arm around holly and give her a cuddle

"Hey" she said gently "hey holly, what's the matter darling? Are you just missing your mum again"

Holly didn't want to explain about school so just nodded her head in response

Rachel put ivy on her knee so she could give her a proper cuddle, however as soon as she'd started to get her settled she heard Ivy cry out.

"Oh dear your sister doesn't sound to happy either. Will you be okay downstairs for a minute or so while I go and check on her, I won't be long I promise"

"Okay"

Rachel then quickly ran upstairs and into Ivy'sroom where she found her in floods of tears

"Hey darling, it's okay" she soothed

"I had a bad dream" ivy stammered

"Oh dear" Rachel said before going over and putting her arm around her "do you want to tell me what happened?"

Ivy shook her head not wanting to talk about it all

"Okay so how about you come downstairs with me, your sisters already down"

Ivy nodded her head and walked down so Rachel got them both on the sofa

"Gosh it's strange being up at this time with you both" Rachel said "I do understand how tough it is on you two you know, but I promise everything will get easier in time"

She stayed down with them both for a bit till they were feeling a lot calmer then took them upstairs

Ivy was practically asleep now so Rachel went in and put her back in bed

She then went across and tucked holly back in

"Are you feeling a bit better now?"

Holly nodded her head

"Night then love I'll see you in the morning"

"Rachel I don't want to go to school tomorrow" holly whispered sounding a bit nervous

Rachel sighed holly had missed quite a few days since she'd been with her, and although she knew how hard school was for her at the minute she knew she needed to get her back into some sort of routine

"We'll talk about that in the morning now come on sleep time"

"Please let me stay home"

"Holly we'll talk in the morning" she said

Holly sighed before turning on her side ready to go to sleep

The morning came round all too quickly for Rachel and when she got up to go in the shower she still felt really tired

Once she'd had a quick wash she wrapped a towel around her body and brushed her teeth but suddenly she heard someone come in, so she quickly finished brushing her teeth before going out

She saw ivy sat on her bed

"Oh hello, its nice to see my bedrooms become open to everyone now mrs" Rachel said, although she didn't really mind a bit

Ivy laughed at this before getting off the bed

"Morning love" she said "how come you're up so early"

"I just woke up" ivy said

"Well can you just give me 2 minutes to out some clothes on and then we'll get you dressed" she said "go and wait in your room for me"

Ivy walked out and went into her room while Rachel quickly got changed into her work clothes

Once she was dressed she went into Ivy's room and saw her playing with some toys. She smiled at this ivy really did seemed to have settled in so well now and had definitely began to feel a lot more at home, she didn't seem half as fragile now as she did before.

"Right let's get those pyjamas off and into your uniform"

"Can I not finish playing?"

"You can play after, come on"

Ivy sighed before taking her pyjamas off and tucking them under her pillow before getting into her school uniform

Rachel then put her on her knee while she brushed her long blonde hair, but ivy started wriggling around a lot

"Hold still while I brush your hair love"

Ivy tried to stay still even though it did pull a bit. She'd always hated having her hair brushed, when her mum was alive she used to pull so hard and sometimes it would make her cry but if she did ever start crying she would smack her bum with the brush.

She started thinking about her mum again a tear formed in her eye

Rachel saw this and got a bit worried

"Are you okay darling? Am I brushing too hard?"

"No, I'm okay"

Rachel could tell ivy didn't really want to talk about it, although normally if she did see she was upset she would try and get her to tell her about it but she also knew when to leave it too

Once she'd finished she left ivy to it for a bit before going into Holly's room to wake her up

Eventually holly stirred and sat up

"Morning holly"

"Morning" holly replied sounding a bit flat

She really didn't want to go to school today but knew Rachel well enough by now to know that although she was always very caring towards her she was by no means a pushover either and there was no chance she'd let her stay off school just for the sake of It

"Come on then up you get for school"

"Last night You said we could talk about school in the morning"

"Look I've had a think about it and I really don't want you missing any more school holly, I know last week you had a few days off and I had no problem with that but I really do think it's time to get you back into a proper routine"

"But I don't feel well" Holly lied

Rachel sighed not believing her at all

"how don't you feel well?"

"My stomach hurts and do does my head, I'm really tired too"

Rachel rolled her eyes putting her hand to Holly's forehead, as she expected she didn't feel one bit hot

"Look I've worked with kids for long enough to know when someone's lying to me, now I don't think there's much wrong with you is there if you're being honest with me"

Holly was about to go on but realised there wasn't much point so shook her head

"Okay now come on, it really is time to get up now"

Holly sighed before taking her pyjamas off and starting to get changed.

"Cheer up it's Friday, we'll have a nice night tonight"

Holly stayed really quiet right up until when Rachel dropped her off at school

Once Rachel had dropped the girls off she drove off to school herself but she couldn't help but feel a bit concerned as holly hadn't seemed right

Holly walked into class and sat at her table.

She tried to just get on with her work all morning but it seemed so hard, even the basic sums they'd been doing before her mum died seemed so difficult now and when they were doing some english and they had to write an opening for a story she couldn't think of anything to write and just sat doing nothing for ages.

Finally break came so she went over and walked with some of her friends, they'd all been so nice to her since her mum died but sometimes she wished they'd just leave her alone a bit because she never felt like talking much even though she did know they were just trying to be kind

After break they went back into class but everyone was a bit surprised because the boys all got told to go into the hall

Once all the girls were sat in their seats, the class teacher went to the front of the class

"Right girls, this is just a quick message from me before we get the boys back in, next week our school nurse is going to come in and give you all a talk about growing up, in particular what to expect with periods, but before we can do that we need you all to get your parents to read over the letter and sign it, there's also a booklet they can have a look through too just so they know exactly what we'll be covering and it might be an idea to have a chat with your mum or whoever looks after you before Monday about some of this"

Holly immediately began to panic, although she'd got to know her aunt pretty well over the past couple of weeks she still hated the idea of having to talk to her about this and giving her the letter, thinking how uncomfortable It would be for them both.

While the other girls chatted about it holly stayed silent.

By lunch time she was feeling pretty worn out with everything, she hid in the toilets while the girls went in for dinner

She managed to stay cooped up in there all of lunch despite the fact her friends were looking everywhere for her

When the bell went she really didn't want to go back in so stayed inside for a bit

She didn't think she'd been that long but she was actually about 20 minutes late. When she eventually went back in she realised she didn't have there normal teacher but a substitute who had a reputation for being really hard on the kids

"And where have you been? How dare you walk Into my lesson late"

"Miss you can't shout at her" one of Holly's friends said

"And You can remain quiet while I'm talking" she said "now why are you so late"

"No reason mrs walker"

"Outside now"

Holly walked outside and waited for her to come out

"What on earth makes you think it's appropriate to walk into lessons so late, is there a rule hat apples to you and none of the other 200 pupils that attend this school"

"Leave me alone" holly shouted before walking off however mrs walker soon caught up with her and marched her over to her head teachers office

She explained what had happened before leaving holly with mrs Gibbs

"Holly that isn't like you" she said "look I realise everything's been a bit upsetting for you but that still does not excuse behaving like that"

"I'm sorry"

"You can stay up here with me this afternoon and do some work"

Holly nodded her head and mrs Gibbs set her some work to do

After what seemed like forever the bell for the end of school so holly got up

"Holly is your aunt picking you up?"

Holly nodded her head

"I'd like a quick chat then, come on I'll follow you out"

"Please don't" Holly said I sounding worried as the last thing she wanted was to get into trouble with Rachel as she could imagine to be pretty strict when she wanted to be

"I just want to speak to her that's all, anyway she didn't seem very scary when I met her"

Holly didn't say anything and went out with mrs Gibbs

She spotted Rachel and ivy waiting for her straight away and suddenly felt really nervous

Rachel quickly spotted her and walked over

"Hey holly" she said sounding a bit confused

"Hi, mrs Gibbs needs to speak to you" holly said staring down at her feet

"Sorry it won't take long I promise"

"Oh it's no problem, is holly okay to wait out here with ivy or would you like her to come in too?"

"Actually I think holly should probably join us, ivy why don't you pop along to the hall and go to after school club for 10 minutes while I have a chat with your aunt, I've heard they've got some lovely chocolate biscuits in tonight"

"Well you can't complain at that can you ivy?" Rachel said "go on love we'll come and get you when you're done"

Ivy then Walked into the school hall and started playing with the other kids while the three of them walked across to her office

"Please excuse the mess in here, I've had a particularly large amount of paper work to get through, though I'm sure you'll know all about that"

"Oh believe me I do, and it's a lot neater than mine is" Rachel said laughing

Mrs Gibbs smiled before sitting down

"How's holly been today, I know she's been in a few days already but she did seem a bit upset this morning"

"Well actually things haven't gone so well today have they holly?"

Holly didn't look at either of them and just shook her head

"Oh really why?" Rachel asked sounding worried

"Well I don't think holly had been feeling right all day, I spoke to some of her friends and they said that she wasn't talking much at break or in class and at lunch she disappeared"

"Where did you go holly?"

"Just in the toilets"

"You waited in the toilets all lunch time" Rachel said sounding a bit shocked

"I just wanted some time on my own"

"Well she actually ended up being quite late for afternoon lessons, it was at least 20 minutes and then she ended up being quite cheeky to the teacher covering" she explained, holly really hadn't been that cheeky at all but mrs walker had exaggerated it quite a bit.

"Holly that's not like you" Rachel said a little surprised as it was very unusual for holly to act like this when she was normally so well behaved

"I'm sorry auntie Rachel" holly said

She suddenly burst into tears before running outside

"Oh dear" mrs Gibbs sighed "I don't think it'd have been anything serious that would have gone on you know, strictly between you and me mrs walker has quite a high tendency to exaggerate and she hasn't a clue about anything that's gone on, so there's a chance she was a tad harsh on holly"

"Well to be honest with you it's not so much the being cheeky bit I'm bothered about it's more how upset you say she was"

"

"How's holly been at home"

"She's taking it a lot worse than ivy, I think she's feeling a bit more comfortable at home and with me, well at least I hope she is, but she seems so fragile"

"If I were you I'd go easy on her about what happened today, as far as I'm concerned it won't get brought up again"

"Oh don't worry I will, I'm not planning on having a go or anything but it would be nice to have a proper chat with her"

The two of them ended up having a chat for about 15 minutes until eventually Rachel realised it was probably a good idea for her to find holly

She went into the toilets and found holly in there

"Rachel I'm sorry"

"Come on you let's go home, we'll talk when we're back"

"Are you mad with me" holly asked

Rachel sighed before walking over to her

"Holly I don't get mad very often and when I do you'll know about it, but it'll most likely be over something more than being late for your lesson" Rachel said "come on let's go and get your sister"

Once they'd picked ivy up they all got in the car and drive home

"Right girls go upstairs to get your uniform off please so I can get it in the wash"

Holly still felt a bit nervous when she went down to give her uniform to Rachel

"Thanks love, I'll just wait for your sister to give me hers then I think me and you should have a little chat"

Ivy came down a minute or so later and then Rachel took holly upstairs and into her room

"So do you want to talk about school today?"

Holly shook her head, staring at the ground

"Come on you can tell me"

"I don't know why I did it, I just got into school and I felt like I couldn't do anything, everyone was being so nice but I just wanted to be left alone"

"Oh holly" Rachel sighed "you said have just explained to your teacher how you were feeling, I'm sure she could have understood and let you go to the library or something to do some work in peace, you don't have to keep everything bottled up you know"

"I am sorry"

"It isn't really about being sorry love, it's just about knowing when to realise being in a classroom isn't the right place to be that's all"

The two of them talked for a bit longer and after Rachel had spoken to her holly was feeling a bit happier

"Now how about we go and check what your sister is up to"

Holly got up and followed Rachel upstairs

"It seems weirdly quiet up here" Rachel said

They then opened Ivy's room and found her fast asleep sucking her thumb on her bed

"Gosh she only looks about 3 years old bless her" Rachel said smiling

The two of them decided to leave her to it for a bit as they felt bad waking her up when she looked so cute

Holly suddenly remembered the note she had in her bag, though she didn't really want to give it to Rachel yet as she still felt really embarrassed by it all

"Have you got any homework to do this weekend love?"

"I have a little bit"

"Well how about you crack on with it now and then you can have the whole weekend just relaxing, I was thinking about maybe going shopping tomorrow with you, just so we can get you a few things"

"Yeah that'd be really nice"

"Better get that homework done now though" Rachel said smiling slightly

Holly sighed and reluctantly went downstairs and opened her maths book.

When she was there she looked at all the sums and just couldn't figure out how to do them, she didn't understand because they'd covered them loads in class and before she was fine but she didn't even know where to start now.

She stared blankly at her piece of paper for a while and a few tears fell down her face which she quickly tried to brush away, however when Rachel turned round to glance over at her she saw her wiping her tears away

"Holly what's the matter love?" She asked

"I can't do it" holly mumbled

Rachel immediately put down all the ironing she was doing and went over

"Hey don't get upset over it" Rachel said before sitting down at the table with her "I'll try and go through it with you if I can"

Rachel had a look through and realised that even to her it seemed pretty simple stuff so she should be able to explain it to holly

It took a while but eventually after a bit of patience holly was able to understand it once Rachel had been through it properly do was feeling a lot happier about it

The rest of the evening seemed to go by quite quickly Rachel had ivy in bed by 7 and then stopped down for a bit with holly but made her go to bed at 9

Once holly was in bed she couldn't sleep, she kept thinking about the note she had to give to Rachel and realised that she should probably give it to her. She'd been in bed about half an hour when she decided to get it out of her bag and go downstairs

She crept into the living room where Rachel was sat watching some tv

As soon as she spotted holly stood at the door she flicked it off

"What are you doing down here mrs" she said "is there something on your mind" she added gently

"Not really" holly said

Rachel looked at her a bit confused but then noticed the letter in her hand

"Is that for me?"

Holly just nodded her head in response before giving it to her

" will you sign it for me?" She asked before running upstairs before Rachel had a chance to even look at the letter

Rachel was quite puzzled by this, but she soon understood when she read through the letter

She sighed wondering what the best thing for her to so was, she knew she should probably talk to holly about it, but she didn't want to embarrass her and she wasn't sure what the right thing to say was

She left it a few minutes before going upstairs and into Holly's room

She found her sat up in bed obviously feeling a bit anxious

"I've signed your letter for you love" she said slipping it in her bag

"Thankyou" holly mumbled

Rachel then went and sat on her bed

"So I was reading through the booklet you got and having a look at what you're talks are going to be on"

"Oh" holly said her cheeks flushing

"Have you got any questions, or anything you want to talk to me about" Rachel asked

Holly shook her head

"Oh holly I do get it you know, it's awkward talking about this stuff especially when your mum isn't around...but the thing is love over the next few years you're going to have a lot of changes happen and I just want you to be able to come to me and feel comfortable enough to ask me about anything you're unsure of"

"It's just everyone else has got their mum and they all know so much more than me, but mum didn't really tell me much"

"It must be hard when it feels like that, has your mum explained any of it to you?"

"Well sort of, she's told me like what a period is and stuff but I didn't really get it"

"Ah okay, well a period is just something all girls have where they bleed for a few days each month"

"When does it start"

"Well anytime really, I don't imagine it'd be for at least a year or so away until you do start but it could be as early as next week or as late as 15, but normally you'll get some signs before you stater like a sore stomach and spots, or maybe having some moods swings, though sometimes these can get quite bad especially when you get a bit older but that's why sometimes women can seem really moody for no reason like when a teacher might start shouting and seem really stressed though really no ones done much wrong or if I'm being really snappy with you or ivy sometimes it's just because your hormones go a bit mad when you're due on your period"

"Oh that doesn't sound very nice" holly remarked

"Well It isn't really but unfortunately it's just another one of them things that us women have to get on with"

"It's not fair nothing happens to boys"

"It does seem that way, but things do happen to boys to though I won't pretend it's half as bad as all the girl stuff"

After they'd talked for a bit longer holly was feeling a bit happier but also quite sleepy so rachel decided to leave it at that

"Night darling, and remember you have any more questions you just let me know yeah?"

"Yeah, night Rachel"

Once Rachel had left she decided to go to bed herself as she was feeling pretty tired now

She quickly got changed into her pyjamas and went into bed

She'd been reading her book for a while when she started to feel really tired so put it down and flicked off the light

About 5 minutes passed and Rachel was half asleep when suddenly she heard someone come into her room so she quickly sat up and turned the light back on

"Ivy what you doing?" She asked

"My tummy hurts" ivy said

Rachel sighed before throwing back the bed covers so ivy could get in

"Come in here with me for a bit then"

Ivy went over and got in

"When did it start to hurt"

"Well I was in bed and it just suddenly felt all sore"

"Let's try and go to sleep then I'm sure it'll feel better by morning"

Rachel put her Arms around her and eventually they both fell asleep

Ivy woke up at about 2, she realised she really needed a wee because Rachel had forgotten to make her go before bed

When she went to the toilet though she realised her tummy was still really sore, she wasn't sure what to do because she didn't really want to wake Rachel up

Rachel had heard her go to the loo and when she wasn't back she went up to check on her

"Ivy are you okay?"

"My tummy still really hurts" ivy said opening the door and coming out

"oh dear should we go and get you some medicine then"

Ivy nodded so Rachel led her out and went downstairs with her

"I wonder what's caused that, i hope it wasn't that chicken we had for tea"

"I don't think it is"

"We'll see if this medicine does anything then"

once she'd given ivy it the two of them went back up to bed and luckily ivy slept through the whole night and by tomorrow she was feeling a lot better

Please review and if you want a storyline included just let me know :) xxxxx


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Just in response to a review I got from a guest on my unbroken promises story, sorry I haven't updated it and that I don't update more often I've got exams coming up at the moment so I'm only really able to update once every 2 weeks but should be able to go back to knee a week after exams, glad you're enjoying it though I'll try and update that next time xx

It was a Friday night after school and Rachel was waiting for the girls to come out, she heard the bell ring and like always holly came out straight away and walked up to her aunt

"Hello love, did you have a nice day?" She asked

"Yeah it was really good thanks" holly said smiling

They waited for about 5 minutes but there was still no sign of ivy.

Ivy had actually ended up in her head teachers office after she'd been caught stealing from someone else's bag. Of course she hadn't taken anything big she'd just seen a book in there bag and had taken it out to have a look but when the teacher saw she thought she just be stealing it and got really angry with her

"Are you going to tell auntie Rachel" ivy stammered fear evident in her voice

"I'm going to give you the chance to tell her yourself, but come monday morning I'll be checking to make sure she's fully aware of what's been going on"

"Okay" ivy mumbled

Mrs Gibbs sighed feeling a bit sorry for her

"You can go now, your auntie will be worried" she said

Ivy was about to leave but she looked so upset with herself that mrs Gibbs felt she had to try and comfort her a bit

"Ivy" she said causing her to turn round "don't go worrying yourself too much, I'm sure it was a one off, just explain it to your auntie tonight and then I'm sure it'll be forgotten"

"Okay" ivy said sounding in the verge of tears

"We all know it's hard for you" she added gently "would you like a tissue?"

Ivy nodded so she pulled one out of the box and gave it to her, however this seemed to make her cry even more

She put an arm around her gently "there now it's not so bad dear, I'm sorry you've not had a good day but Mondays a fresh start, do you want me to nip over and bring your auntie in to let her know you're upset?"

"No please don't"

Ivy then quickly went out leaving mrs Gibbs feeling a awful for not being a bit more gentle with her

Ivy quickly spotted Rachel and walked over, trying to brush any tears away

"Hey darling" Rachel said smiling at her, before putting her in her arms and giving her a kiss "how come you came out that why and not through your classroom?"

"I had to drop something at the office" ivy lied

"Ah okay" Rachel said "come on then girls let's go home"

She took the two of them to the car and got in before driving home

When they were about half way back she noticed how quiet ivy was being

"Are you okay ivy, you seem very quiet"

"I'm okay"

"You sure" she asked

"Yes" ivy mumbled

Rachel decoded to leave it for now as she knew ivy wouldn't was harassing over it

Once they were home both girls went upstairs to get changed

Rachel decoded to go up and have a little chat with holly, as she knew she'd had another of her sex ed lessons today and wanted to check if she had any questions

She knocked on the door but didn't wait for holly to answer and just walked in, how wee when sen did she found holly stood in front of the mirror with just her knickers on

Holly felt really embarrassed when she saw Rachel stood there

"Go away" she shouted

Rachel quickly went out and waited outside till holly called her in

"I'm sorry for barging in on you love, I should have asked first"

"It's okay" holly mumbled

"Have you got your school stuff"Holly nodded and handed it over

"rrHow was your sex ed lesson today?"

"Fine" holly said blushing

"What were you doing about?" Rachel asked

"I can't remember" holly said really wanting to change the subject as she didn't really want to talk about

"Well it was only today love, you must remember something from it"

"Erm it was just about sex"

"Ah okay" Rachel said, she'd never spoken to holly about that, she thought that they might of waited till year 6 to give them that talk and she presumed that her mum would have said something about it before

"Did you know anything about it before you had the talk"

Rosie shook her head feeling a bit embarrassed about it

"And did you understand It all?"

Holly just nodded her head not meeting Rachel's gaze

"And do you have any questions?"

"No" holly said

"Oh love, you can talk to me you know"

"Yeah I know"

"Right well please tell me if you do have anything you want to chat about okay?"

"Yeah I will ...Rachel how old were you when you started wearing a bra?" Holly asked cheeks flushing again

"Oh erm... I can't really remember probably about your age or maybe a bit older why?"

"Well a load of girls in my class have started to wear one, but I'm still really flat chested"

"But love you are only 10 you know, no one expects you to be developing properly yet, but if a lot of the girls in your class are do you think maybe we should get you a couple?"

"Really, you'd let me get one"

"Well it isn't really a case of me letting you get one, of course I would let you if you think you need one or would feel more comfortable Wearing one"

"Well I would like to"

"okay, so how about when we go into town tomorrow we'll pick a few up"

"Thanks auntie Rachel"

"That's alright darling, thanks for chatting to me about it"

Rachel then left her to it and went into Ivy's room but noticed she wasn't in there she saw the bathroom door was closed so realised she must be on the loo

She waited a couple of minutes but ivy didn't come out so she knocked in the door

"Ivy are you okay?" She asked

"Yeah"

"You've been in ages, are you still on the loo"

"No" ivy said

"Well can I come in?"

"No" ivy mumbled "I won't be long"

Ivy quickly mopped up her tears before going out

"Sweetie what's the matter" she asked sounding worried

"I just feel a bit sick"

"Were you sick just hen in the loo?"

Ivy nodded her head, thinking she'd sound more believable then

"Really, why didn't you shout me in then love"

"I don't know"

"I wonder why that is, what did I give you in your lunch box today can you remember?"

"Erm an apple, a ham sandwich a yoghurt and some chocolate but then the teacher saw and took it away from me"

"Why are you not allowed chocolate or something?" Rachel asked, surprised as she'd never known this before and she'd normally put some chocolate in their lunch box on a Friday for a treat"

"Well not really but they don't normally mind but there's this one dinner lady who does and she takes it away from us"

"Ah okay, so when did you start feeling poorly?"

"Not very long ago"

"Do you feel better now you've been sick or do you need some medicine"

"I feel better"

"Okay"

Rachel then went into her room and sat down next to her

"Love there's nothing else on your mind is there, nothing you want to get off your chest"

Ivy thought about it, for a moment she was going to tell Rachel bit in the end she decided not to as she still felt pretty frightened

"No"

"Well if you think of anything you just let me know okay?"

Ivy nodded her head

"Now I'm going to make us some tea, it shouldn't be too long"

Rachel then went downstairs and started cutting some vegetables ready for the soup

A few minutes later holly came running down

"Rach please can I go round my friends house tonight"

"Yeah sure, when did you arrange that?"

"I was just talking to her on Skype then, I'll just go round after tea"

"That's no problem, how did you get on Skype though, our computers broke we still need to get that man round to fix it"

"I borrowed your work laptop" holly said sounding a bit sheepish but she knew there was no point lying about it

"Right ill make this clear that laptops for my work only not for you to go talking to your friends on, there's things on there that are very important and also very private. So you don't ever go on there again without my permission"

Rachel didn't mean for it to sound quite as harsh as it did and she instantly felt a bit bad especially when she saw how upset holly looked, she'd never really heard her auntie sound angry with her before and she didn't like it much

"I'm sorry" she mumbled before walking off Into the living room so Rachel didn't see the tears forming in her eyes

She didn't know why it had upset her but she suddenly felt all tearful

Rachel sighed realising she must have upset her

She gave her a couple of minutes before going into the living room and walking over

"Come and give me a hand with tea love"

Reluctantly holly got up and followed her through

"I'm sorry for shouting holly, I didn't mean to upset you"

"It's okay" she mumbled "I'm sorry for going on your laptop, I didn't think you'd mind"

Holly had just presumed her auntie would be okay with it as she never normally minded her going on her phone and things

"I know, and if it didn't have all my work stuff on there I really wouldn't mind at all, Its probably best I set a password up for it though, last thing I want is ivy to go on and to end up deleting everything on there" Rachel said smiling slightly "anyway do you fancy giving me a hand with tea"

Holly nodded so Rachel got her chopping the carrots up

"What are you making auntie Rachel?"

"Vegetable soup"

Holly made a face, the sound of it not really appealing to her

"I saw that face young lady, it'll be nice I promise" she said "I've fed you and ivy way too much junk over the last few weeks, which is probably why Ivy's feeling sick, but it's time I got you back to a proper healthy diet"

A while later tea was ready so she called both girls down, as holly had got bored after chopping the carrot and went upstairs

When they went down they sat at the table and Rachel served up the soup, but even she had to admit it didn't look very appetising

Neither ivy or holly looked overly impressed when Rachel gave it to them

"It smells funny" ivy said

"Gosh, if there going to be this much fuss every time I give you something healthy I think there's a bit of a problem isn't there,now get it eaten"

"But you haven't eaten any of yours auntie Rachel" ivy pointed out

Rachel sighed realising this was true, she out her spoon to her mouth and gingerly put it in. It really was awful, she thought even worse then she'd imagined

"Mm delicious" she said "now get yours eaten, I want to see clean bowls" however she knew the chances of this was very slim

Holly and ivy started eating it and to their surprise actually really enjoyed it

Rachel looked at them as they ate it, thinking they were going a long way to try to be polite

"Okay girls, I'll admit it it's disgusting, come on I'll quickly do us some pasta or something"

"What do you mean it's really nice" holly said

"Really?"

"Yeah,get eating yours auntie Rachel you want to see clean bowls remember" holly said laughing

Rachel forced a few spoonfuls down before chucking it in the bin

"I can't believe you like that, you mad kids"

"It's nice" holly said "you'll have to make it again sometime"

"Well I'll happily make it for you, but I'll be tucking in to a takeaway while you eat it"

Once the girls had finished Rachel quickly put their plates away

"Come on then holly I'll give you a lift to your friends"

"I can walk round if you want auntie Rachel, it's not very far and it's so hot outside"

"We'll all walk round with you"

"But i can find my way"

"I know you don't want to be seen walking with your auntie when you go round your friends, but we can just drop you round the corner can't we?"

"Yeah I guess"

The three of them got there shoes on before walking round, however while they were walking Rachel noticed ivy was still being really quiet

She was about to ask if she was okay again, when suddenly holly started screaming

"Ow get it off, it's going to sting me"

Rachel realised she had a bee on her so quickly tried to waft it away but it ended up stinging her on the finger

"Shit" she muttered under her breath when she realised it had stung her

She quickly tried to get the sting out and luckily managed it but it was really quite sore

"Honestly holly if you'd have just stayed calm it'd have gone away on it's own" she said rubbing her finger

"Well it was going to sting me"

"No it wasn't" she sighed "it's really sore now"

It actually turned out to be quite a long walk and took them a good 15 minutes to walk round there

"What time do you want picking up?"

"About 8ish"

"Okay be ready for 8 then, because I'll have to take ivy with me and it'll be way past her bedtime"

"I'll try and be ready"

"No you won't try you will be" Rachel said raising her eyebrows

"Okay I will be then" holly said giggling

"Go on then have a nice time and be good"

Once she'd seen holly go in okay her and ivy started walking back

"So just me and you tonight ivy, do you fancy doing anything? We could go to that park now if you want and have an ice cream"

"Yeah that'd be nice"

"Come on then we'll walk round, though it's quite a while away, you're legs aren't too tired are they"

Ivy shook her head in response

As they were walking round ivy kept thinking of ways to tell Rachel, she seemed in a good mood at the moment and unlikely to get cross but she still couldn't bring herself to tell her

Suddenly as they were walking ivy tripped up on a loose paving stone

"Shit" she said repeating what she'd heard Rachel say earlier when the bee stung her

"Hey ivy don't let me here you say that okay" Rachel said however she didn't really shout at her as she knew that ivy would have just heard it somewhere and not understand it was wrong

"Why not?"

"Well there are some words that you hear and there not very nice words to use, so just ask me next time you hear a word and you're not sure if it's a good word or a bad word okay?"

"But you said it earlier auntie Rachel, when you got stung be the bee"

"Ah did I" Rachel said "well that was very naughty of me wasn't it?"

They walked a bit further and ivy still hadn't said much

Rachel took her hand as they walked along

"Ivy are you okay love?" She asked "you do know you can talk to me if something's happened don't you"

Ivy just nodded her head not wanting to talk about it still

"And you know I'm not going to get really cross or anything"

Ivy nodded her head again in response

"It's just you seem a bit quiet love and not very much like you"

"I'm okay"

"You sure?"

"Yeah"

"Okay then" she said before giving her a slight smile

Once they arrived at the park Rachel sat in the sun while ivy went off to play and after a while she came back and they had an ice cream together sat on the grass

"Mmm that's delicious isn't it. No good for me diet though"

"What's a diet?"

"It's where you try and not eat as much as normal so you can lose a bit of weight, nothing you need to worry about though"

"Why do you need to loose weight, you're tummy's really flat"

Rachel laughed at this and ruffled Ivy's hair

"Thanks darling" she said "it's about time we were getting back don't you think, so we can get you in the bath and ready for bed before we go and get holly"

"Okay"

They started walking back through the woods

"Do you need to go to the loo before we set off back?"

"No"

"Now are you sure, it's a long walk back and you haven't been for a while, how about we just go anyway just in case"

"Okay" ivy said

They walked across to the toilets and ivy went in

Rachel waited until ivy came out and washed her hands

"Come on then let's get back"

By the time they were home again ivy had worn herself out so Rachel quickly ran a bath and got her in

No sooner had she got her in the bath the phone started ringing, she sighed but knew she had to answer in case it was holly

"I'll be two minutes love"

Rachel quickly ran to answer it

She found out that it was holly telling her, her friends mum was going to drop her off instead, which she was quite glad about as it meant she could get ivy to bed after her bath

Once she'd had her bath she got her dry and into pyjamas before taking her downstairs for some hot chocolate like she always did before bedtime as it was a good way to get ivy to relax

"Do you want anything for supper love?"

"No thank you"

"Are you sure?you don't want some toast of anything like that, no"

"Actually yes please" she said

Rachel laughed before going into the kitchen and doing her some toast before bringing it into the living room and giving it to her

"You better make sure you don't spill that all over my sofa" she said thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea giving her hot chocolate to have in here

Ivy got a bit distracted for a while still wondering how she should tell Rachel, suddenly she dropped her cup all over the sofa

"Oh ivy what did I literally just say, I told you to be careful didn't I?" Rachel sighed exasperated

"I'm sorry" ivy said her eyes filling with tears

Rachel couldn't really stay mad when ivy looked so upset despite the fact she'd have to spend a while now cleaning it up

"Never mind, no point getting all upset over it now is there huh?" She said

"I really didn't mean to, I'm sorry" she cried

"Hey it'll come off the carpet and the sofas leather anyway so there's no need to cry about it" she said "come on dry your tears I didn't mean to shout, it was my fault anyway for letting you have it in here"

Rachel went into the kitchen and grabbed her spray which was normally good for getting stains out of carpets so she was praying it would work this time

Once she'd put it in and cleaned the sofa up she took ivy upstairs

"Go and have a quick trip to the bathroom mrs and then I'll come in your bed and we'll read a story if you want"

Once ivy had been she quickly got into her bed beside Rachel and she read to her for a bit but she couldn't seem to concentrate on the story even though she normally loved it when Rachel would read to her on weekends.

When they'd finished the story Rachel tucked her in

"Night night darling, I love you"

"Night auntie Rachel, I love you too"

"Have a good sleep sweetie, and remember to give me a shout if you need me during the night"

Rachel was just about to leave and turn off the lights when ivy stopped her

"Auntie Rachel if I'd done something naughty, how naughty would it have to be for you to get rid of me"ivy asked finding it difficult to stop tears forming in her eyes

"What?" Rachel said gently, sitting back down on her bed "what on earths made you ask that love?"

"I was just wondering"

"Sweetheart nothing and I really do mean nothing would be naughty enough to make me want to make you leave, you're here forever and I know that sometimes you'll be naughty I think is be more worried if you never did anything naughty than if you did"

"Really"

"Yeah" Rachel said "have you got something you want to tell me about?"

Ivy just shook her head in response deciding to tell her tomorrow instead

"Now are you absolutely sure about that"

"Yes"

"Because you know if you did want to tell me something I'm not going to be shocked or get mad or anything like that, it's just I'm sure you'd rather talk about it with someone than keep it to yourself"

"There's nothing"

"Okay darling, well try and go to sleep now yeah"

"Yeah"

"Night night and I'll see you in the morning"

Rachel left feeling quite concerned wondering what it was that's gone on, she knew things that wouldn't even be worth worrying about to an adult would seem massive to a child, especially when they were as young as ivy and when she'd had so much instability over the last few weeks.

She got on with some work for a bit and lost track of time until she heard the front door open and holly come in.

She had more or less finished her work for the weekend now and it felt good to be able to forget about it till Monday and just have a relaxing weekend with the girls

"Hey holly" she said coming into the hall

"Hi, sorry I'm late back Chloe's mum got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home from work so she was late home"

"Oh well there nothing that can be done about that is there?"

"I guess not"

"Who was home with you then if Chloe's mum wasn't in"

"Just her sister jasmine she's 17"

"Oh is she" Rachel said "and what did you get up to?"

"We just watched a film"

"Which one?"

"Oh erm I can't remember I think it might have been erm wild child" holly lied

The truth was Chloe's sister had let them watch scream with he'd and now both girls were feeling pretty scared but she knew it'd be daft to tell Rachel this

"Yeah yeah, what film did you watch really?"

"Scream 4"

"You watched what?" Rachel said outraged "holly that's not the type of thing a 10 year old should be watching, you'll be having nightmares for days!"

"I'm not scared"

"I bet you any money you won't be able to get to sleep tonight young lady" Rachel said "why the hell did you decided to watch that?"

"Her sister put it on"

"Well that sounds really responsible" Rachel sighed "anyway maybe we should put corrie on for a bit so you can watch something a bit nicer"

Holly liked the sound of this so the two of them went into the living room

"What's the stain from?"

"You're sister spilt her hot chocolate everywhere"

"Oh"

"She hasn't said anything to you has she, it's just she's seemed upset all night and she asked me earlier if I'd get rid of her if she did something naughty"

"No she didn't say anything to me"

"Oh right, maybe she's just in a bit of a strange mood"

Rachel let holly stay up till 9 before taking her up to bed

"Night hols try and have a good sleep and not have nightmares about that film"

"I'll try" holly said but after spending an hour or so with her aunt she didn't feel very scared anymore

Once she'd tucked holly in she crept across and went into Ivy's room.

She looked very unsettled despite the fact she was asleep and had kicked all her blankets off which was very unusual for her. Rachel tucked her back in properly before giving her a soft kiss

She stayed up for a couple of hours before going to bed and falling fast asleep

Suddenly ivy started dreaming that someone had caught her with the book she'd taken and the police were coming for her. She dreamt that she got put in jail and she stated crying loads because she didn't like it in there however then she woke up still all sweaty and In tears.

She was in such a state she just wanted Rachel to come and see her even if it did mean getting in trouble.

Ivy remembered what Rachel had said earlier about calling her if she needed her so called her name a few times

Rachel was in a really deep sleep however and didn't wake up

Ivy got out of bed and crept across to Rachel's room with tears running down her face

Once she was in she didn't really know what to do, she could hear her auntie snoring and didn't want to get told off for waking her but eventually she tapped her a few times and Rachel stirred

She jumped when she saw someone stood next to her but soon realised it was ivy all upset.

She flicked her light on and realised she must be quite upset

"Ivy what's the matter?" She asked

Ivy continued to cry so she pulled her into her bed and wrapped her arms around her and pulled her into her chest

She just sat there stoking her hair and comforting her for a bit until eventually ivy whispered "I've done something really bad auntie Rachel"

"Oh darling I'm sure it can't be that bad" she said softly "have you had a bad dream about it"

"Yes I dreamt I got put in jail because of it" she said sobbing

"Oh dear" Rachel sighed "it's okay I'm here now"

"Please don't be mad with me, mrs Gibbs said that I had to tell you about what happened or she would on Monday"

"Okay, so why don't you just get it over with and tell that horrible auntie of yours, whose obviously so scary and mean you can't even come to her when you're feeling upset and would rather get yourself this worked up than tell her about it"

"Well today at break I went in to go to the toilet and all the bags were hung up, I went to put my coat over there because it was hot and I saw a book in Millie's bag so I went to pick it out to have a look" ivy said through tears, she stopped for a moment to get her breath because she was crying quite a lot now "and the year 6 girls on duty thought I was stealing it and they started shouting loads and grabbed it out my hand and said they were going to tell and I got scared so I hit one of them and then they made me go into the staff room with them and all the teachers got really angry and I had to stop with mrs Gibbs all afternoon"

By the time she'd finished telling her ivy was felling all scared and upset again. She was crying so much she had to run to Rachel's bathroom and started being sick

Rachel quickly ran over and held her hair back

"That's it good girl" she whispered

As soon as ivy had finished being sick ivy sat down on the floor against the wall as she was too shaky to Stand up properly

Rachel sat done next to her and have her a big cuddle

"Oh you poor thing" she said

"Are you mad?"

"Ivy how could I be mad when you're this upset, why on earth didn't you just come and talk to me about it after school?"

"I was really scared"

Rachel calmed her down for a bit before lifting her up and carrying her back into the bed

"Now I don't want you worrying about this anymore, I understand what happened and you're not in trouble though I'm sure I don't need to tell you hitting people normally isn't a great thing to do. Thank you for telling me about it, even if it did taken you a while"

"I just didn't want to get into trouble"

"I know but the thing is ivy if I can see you're really sorry and that something's upset you a lot you're never going to be in really big trouble, because as far as I'm concerned the most important thing is that you understand why something was wrong and are sorry for It"

"I really am sorry" ivy mumbled "are you going to punish me?"

"I don't really think there's any need is there? I think you've already punished yourself way too much already, so we won't say anything more about it for now okay"

"Okay"

Ivy was glad she told Rachel and could now sleep a lot easier

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	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was a Thursday straight after lunch and holly was sat in school, but she really wanted to just go home and enjoy the hot weather. She knew that Rachel was at home today as she'd been on a course but knew she'd be back at home by now so would be able to come and pick her up. Although holly didn't really have any reason to want to go home other than it was really nice outside and she did have little bit of a stomach ache anyway, she hoped Rachel wouldn't mind picking her up too much if she told her it was because she felt really poorly.

When her teacher had set the class off doing some work holly got up from her seat and went to the front of the classroom over to her teachers desk.

"What is it Holly? Do you not understand the work?"

"Yeah I understand it, but I don't feel very well"

"Really why?"

"I've been feeling sick all day and my auntie only sent me in because there was no one at home to look after me"

Her teacher didn't really have much reason to not believe her as holly never normally tried to get out if school

"Okay why don't you pop along to the office then, see if they give your auntie a call so you can go home, is she back now?"

"Yeah she said she was getting back at lunch"

Holly walked over to the office, the receptionist was new and didn't have any reason to challenge her so just rang Rachel and asked her to come.

"Holly, your auntie said that her train was a bit late so she got held up but she's almost back home now,so she said she'll be here in about 15 minutes"

"Okay" holly said

Rachel finished up being a bit late as after her train got back, she'd been driving to the school and ended up getting stuck in traffic so it ended up being about 25 minutes later

She rushed straight inside and into reception and saw holly waiting for her

"Hey darling, I'm so sorry I'm late the train was a nightmare and then I got stuck in traffic" she sighed

"It's okay" holly said

"How are you poorly love?"

"Erm I've got a really bad stomach ache and I was sick after lunch"

"Really, oh dear I wonder what's caused that, we'll soon have you tucked up in bed though"

Holly was a bit disappointed at hearing her aunt say that as she'd kind of been hoping for some time in form to the tv or reading her book in the garden

Rachel quickly signed her out and they started walking up

While they were walking out she put her hand to Holly's forehead and realised she didn't feel too hot

"Well you definitely don't have a temperature" she said "when did you start to feel poorly?"

"About lunchtime"

"Might be something you've had to eat then, I'm just surprised it would effect you that quickly" Rachel said "were you sick a lot earlier or just a bit?"

"Erm quite a lot, I still feel really sick though"

"Oh god, you're not going to be sick again are you" Rachel asked

"No"

"Well if you are going to be try and tell me in time so i can park up" she said "I don't do sick at the best of times"

It was only as they were driving back that it dawned on Rachel that holly didn't seem that sick at all and was as chatty as ever, however she decided not to say anything for now

"Right are you going up to bed then" she said once they were inside

Holly nodded and went upstairs before getting into her pyjamas and into bed.

Rachel walked up a few minutes later to check up on her

"Right try and have a nap you'll probably feel better for it"

Holly sighed this wasn't quite turning out into the day at home she'd wanted.

After half a hour or so Holly was so bored in bed she decided to risk coming down

"Hey holly how are you feeling?"

"Loads better now I've been asleep"

"Well it must have been a pretty short sleep" Rachel said raising her eyebrows not entirely convinced at all about this sudden illness

"But it worked"

"Right well maybe I'd better drive you back into school then since you're feeling so much better" Rachel said

She could tell be now holly had clearly just wanted the day off and hadn't really been Ill at all, she felt quite annoyed at holly for this as she'd never really done anything like this before and she couldn't understand why she would do this

"No I am still a bit poorly" holly said

Rachel sighed heavily

"Holly come and sit at the table with me a minute please"

Holly could tell by Rachel's voice that she wasn't very happy with her so felt a bit scared as she sat down at the table

"Now I'm going to ask you something and I'd really appreciate it if you were honest with me okay?"

"okay"

"Though I think you already have a pretty good idea about what I'm going to ask don't you?"

Holly gave a small nod of the head and stared at the floor

"So is there actually anything wrong with you at all or did you just want the day off?"

Holly considered lying but realised there wasn't any point as she could tell Rachel knew the answer anyway.

"Well I have had a bit of a stomach ache all day but mainly I just wanted the afternoon off because it was hot outside"

Rachel didn't really know what to say to this, she couldn't really believe that holly had actually just told her that, she thought she'd at least make up some sort of excuse

"And you think that's acceptable"

"No"

"Well neither do I, when your in school that is where you stay unless there's a very good reason why you can't be there, am I clear?"

"Yes"

"I honestly don't know what you were thinking holly coming home when there's nothing wrong with you in the slightest, I'm very disappointed in you"

"Sorry" she mumbled "but don't make me go back auntie Rachel"

Rachel sighed she looked at the clock and realised there was only a hour left in Holly's school anyway so despite how she was feeling it would be ridiculous to send her back now

"Fine but don't think I'm going to make staying here any nicer than being at school. You can write me a side and a half about why schools important and why what you did today was wrong"

"Are you being serious" holly said but one look at her aunts face told her she was, she just couldn't believe her aunt could be so strict when she wanted, up until now she could never really imagine her as a head teacher as she couldn't imagine her ever shouting really or getting that strict, but now she was starting to see a different side to her

"Oh I'm being deadly serious holly and I'll be checking it at the end to make sure it's too a good standard and if not you can do it all again"

Holly sighed heavily but she started writing as soon as Rachel gave her some paper

By the time holly had finished her side and a half it was time to go and get ivy

"Right bring that with you, I'll look through it while we're waiting for ivy"

Holly picked it up and the two of them got in the car.

Rachel barely spoke to her at all while they were driving their, wanting to show holly she couldn't get daway with it that easily.

"Right pass it here"

d

Holly handed it over to her auntie

Even though it wasn't anything in the least bit important, it came naturally to Rachel to pick up a pen and start marking it.

"Holly you've barely put a single full stop in the whole of this paragraph look" she said " and you're getting your grammar all mixed up in places"

Holly rolled her eyes at this, it was weird hearing Rachel sound like a teacher

"I don't have to do it again do I?"

Rachel decided she couldn't be that mean as holly had obviously tried

"No, overall it's pretty good, just take care when you're writing that's all I'm saying, but it's very high standard for someone who's only in year 5 so well done" Rachel said "though don't think this means you can just have fun for the rest of the evening, you'll be up in your room getting in with something quietly or doing some jobs for me, no playing out with friends and no tv"

Holly sighed but didn't argue with her

A few minutes later holly said "auntie Rachel, are you still mad?"

"I'm not mad exactly, I'm just very disappointed because I'd have thought you'd know a lot better"

"I know it was stupid,I don't know what I was thinking" holly said sounding quite upset now

"Well as long as you understand why it was wrong then that's the main thing isn't it?"

"I suppose so"

They waited another 10 minutes before Rachel got out to go and get ivy

Ivy was quite late coming out after the bell, while she was waiting she saw Holly's teacher coming towards her.

She turned round and smiled at her

"Hello, I'm glad I caught you I just wanted to find out if Holly's okay now" She asked

Rachel decoded to just go along with Holly's illness as she knew holly would hate to be in trouble with her teacher and she'd already had a telling off from her so she didn't see the need to get her told off twice

"Oh she's a bit better actually, she had a little sleep and then she seemed fine"

"Good, I was worried earlier it's not often Holly's poorly is it?"

"No it's not really" she said

They chatted for a bit longer but then Rachel saw ivy come out so the teacher left her to it

"Hey darling how was school?" She asked

"Okay" ivy mumbled as they started walking back

"Just okay?"

Suddenly Ivy's face crumpled and she started crying

"Oh darling" Rachel sighed "come on let's talk about it back at the car"

She quickly took ivy back to the car, knowing the last thing she'd want is people seeing her upset

Once they were there she got in the front and sat ivy on her knee

"Ivy what's wrong" holly said when she saw her sister in tears

"She's obviously not had a very good day, come here love" she said bringing her into her chest and giving her a big cuddle

"come on tell auntie Rachel what's happened"

"Its nothing big, we were playing mummy's and daddy's at lunchtime but they said I couldn't play because I didn't have a mummy or a daddy and then Maisie said that her mummy had said I was an orphan and then no one wanted to play with me because they said orphans are poor and no one loves them"

"Oh love that must have been horrible" Rachel sighed "even if you don't have your parents it doesn't mean you're not every bit as loved as any other child"

"Really"

"Of course sweetie, and I'm not just talking about me either, but of course you know how much you and holly mean to me, lots of people love you, grandma, your aunties and uncles, all your cousins, holly, and you've got lots and lots of friends don't you"

Ivy nodded her head feeling a bit better already

"So when someone says something like that I understand it doesn't feel very nice at the time, but you've just got to think to yourself it's not one bit true because there are so many people out there ivy who love you so much"

"Okay" ivy mumbled

She stayed cuddled up to Rachel for a minute or so before climbing into the back seat

They were about half way home when ivy said "Rachel how come holly wasn't at school in the afternoon, I looked for her in assembly but she wasn't there"

"Because she's been a very naughty girl" Rachel said "she came home poorly from school"

"But what's naughty about that, I've come home from school poorly before and you've never been cross with me"

"Well yes that probably has something to do with the fact you've actually been poorly when you've been sent home, unlike your sister here who just fancied a day off"

Holly was beginning to feel a bit annoyed with Rachel now as she felt she was going on about it way too much

"So she wasn't really poorly?"

"No she wasn't poorly at all, fancy coming home just because you felt like it, you'd never do that would you ivy, because you're a sensible girl"

"Okay you've made your point now can you shut up about it" holly snapped

"Hey watch your tone young lady" Rachel said "if you'd been sensible today I wouldn't have to go on about anything would I?"

"Yes but it's all you've talked about ever since it's happened, it's not like I'm always bad is it?" Holly said tears forming in her eyes, she didn't know why she was feeling so upset about it, it just seemed to have really got to her

Rachel was about to tell her not to talk to her like that, however she glanced over and saw she was crying so decided it was best not to make a fuss and leave it till they were home.

Once they had parked up and Rachel had unlocked the door holly went running up to her room.

Rachel sighed, she gave her a few minutes before going up and knocking on her door

"Go away" holly said but Rachel went in anyway

She saw holly curled up in her bed crying, so Rachel went and sat down next to her

"Hey I'm sorry if I upset you" she said softly

"It's okay" holly mumbled "I don't know why I'm upset"

"I know I've been going on about it too much and I also know that normally you are sensible, but I guess we all make mistakes don't we?" She said "look I was wrong to go on to ivy about it and I'm not going to say anything more about it okay"

"Okay" holly mumbled feeling embarrassed now for getting so upset over it she just felt a bit emotional at the moment

Rachel gave her a quick hug before standing up

"Come on you can help me make a start on tea"

"Can't I make some cakes with ivy for us to have after"

"Erm are you sure you know how to make them?"

"Yeah you taught me remember"

"Oh yeah I remember, well you can if you want my love yes"

Holly went into Ivy's room where she was playing with some of her toys

"Ivy get changed and come and help make cakes"

Ivy liked the sound of this so quickly got out of her school summer dress

"Just put some pyjamas on so you don't get your clothes messy"

Ivy reached under her pillow for her pyjamas and quickly put them on, so the two of them went downstairs

By the time Rachel came downstairs they'd got quite far through their cakes but her kitchen was a complete mess

"And what do you call this girls huh, I hope you're going to be doing the tidying as well as the cooking"

She didn't really mind however as she thought it was nice to see them helping each other out and having a nice time

"What are we having for tea auntie Rachel" ivy asked

"Shepherds pie"

"Ew I hate shepherds pie, the mince in it looks like someone's already chewed it up and then spat it back out and the carrots make it look like sick"

"Don't be so disgusting" Rachel said "you should just eat whatever I give you, all the starving children in Africa would be so grateful for the food you complain about young lady" she said but she was feeling quite out off the idea of shepherds pie herself now

"Well why don't you send my portion to them then, but I don't think they'd like yucky mince and potato and carrots all mashed together"

"Maybe you should just go without tea all together then"

"But then I'll starve" ivy said appalled "please cook me something nice auntie Rachel"

"Who do you think I am your flaming personal chef" she sighed but she'd already got the pasta out instead

"Will cheesy pasta suit you madam"

"Yes" ivy said grinning

"Honestly what are you like" she said

The girls got on with their cakes while Rachel cooked the pasta

"The cakes need to go in the oven now" holly said

She went to get some oven gloves and quickly put them in

15 minutes later the beeper went off

Rachel went to get the oven gloves however when both hers and Holly's backs were tuned ivy reached in and got them

Rachel jumped at the sound of ivy screaming and quickly saw what had happened

"Oh my god what are you doing you silly girl" she said in shock, before quickly rushing over.

She led ivy over to the sink where she started running the cold tap over her hands. Luckily she hadn't burnt herself too badly and it was more the shock than anything

"I'm sorry for shouting sweetie, you just shocked me that's all, are you okay ?"

"yeah It just stings"

"It's no wonder, holly love get the cakes out and keep an eye on the pasta"

Holly did as Rachel said while Rachel spent a while comforting ivy

Eventually tea was ready so they all sat down at the table

They were about half way through when there was a knock on the door so Rachel went up to answer it

She saw that it was some girls from their street who'd obviously come for ivy

"Can ivy come and play out please?"

"I'm sorry girls, we're just having our tea at the moment, we won't be too long though so she come out after that it'll be about 10 minutes"

"Okay" they said before walking off

Rachel then went back into the kitchen to sit down

"Abi and Chloe want you to go and play out with them after tea"

"Can't I go now"

"No you can not, you can finish your tea especially when I had to change what I was going to make to suit you mrs"

Ivy sighed but finished her tea and then ran off

Rachel and holly then started clearing up together

"Do you want to try one of your cakes"

"No thankyou"

"Why not? They look really good"

"I'm just not that hungry"

"Okay then, maybe we'll have one later"

The night seemed to pass quite quickly and by about 7 Rachel was beginning to wonder where ivy had got to but suddenly there was a knock on the door, so she got up to answer it

She was surprised when she saw ivy stood there with one of the neighbours, she noticed ivy was looking very frightened and jack didn't look to happy, but he was one of the oldest and grumpiest neighbours in the street so it wasn't exactly unusual

"Hello can I help you?"

"Your kids been causing havoc all round the street"

"Oh really, and how's she been doing that" Rachel asked wearily, she noticed he had hold of Ivy's shoulder and was obviously hurting her a bit "can you get off her please?"

He let go of ivy and she went and hid behind Rachel

"Her and her little friends were screaming at the top of their voices all down the street, if you ask me you shouldn't let them play on the street, if they can't behave why don't you just keep them in the garden or something"

"Well I'm sorry you got disturbed, I'll make sure their a bit quieter next time they're out" Rachel sighed

"Well see to it you do"

"Ivy have you said your sorry"

"Yes"

As soon as he was gone Rachel rolled her eyes and shut the door

"I'm sorry auntie Rachel"

"Oh I wouldn't worry too much about old jack, he's just a bit old and grumpy that's all just make sure you're jot shouting next time you play out" Rachel said "did you have a good time, besides getting shouted at?"

"Yeah it was really fun"

"That's good then love" Rachel said smiling "anyway it's already getting quite late so I think it's bath time"

"Oh can't I stay up a bit later"

"You've got school tomorrow darling, I'll tell you what if you're a good girl and come up with me now I'll let you stay up late for a treat tomorrow"

"Okay" ivy said

Rachel quickly ran the bath and got ivy In but ivy was starting to feel a bit poorly

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked

"My head hurts and i feel a bit funny"

"Oh really" Rachel said "it might be because you've been in the sun for so long"

By the time ivy had got out of the bath and into some pyjamas she was feeling really weird and she also felt very tired

She was practically falling asleep as Rachel dried her hair

"Come on then love let's get you into bed"

Ivy started walking with Rachel

"Quickly go to the bathroom ivy" she said

"I don't need to go"

"I know but you'll wake up in the middle of the night if you don't go now and then you'll have to get up out of your nice warm bed, just go quickly now I'll wait in your bedroom to come and tuck you in"

Reluctantly ivy got up to go before coming back to her bedroom a few minutes later

Rachel quickly tucked her in and said goodnight

She stayed stroking her hair for a few minutes as this seemed to always soothe her whenever she was a bit poorly and sure enough before long she heard ivy snoring gently next to her, so she kissed her on the forehead before going back downstairs

Her and holly then sat downstairs for a while and Rachel lost track of time it was on,y when she looked at the clock and realised it was a lot later than holly normally went to bed at that she got up

"Hols it's bed time now" Rachel said

"Oh do I have to?"

"Yes you do it's 9:30 thats an hour later than your usual bedtime on a school night young lady and I don't think you should be getting any special treatments after today do you?"

"No" holly sighed

Rachel left her to go and get changed, before going upstairs however when she was on her way up she heard noises coming form the playroom so went to have a look. She tried to stop herself laughing when she found ivy in there talking to all her toys

She quickly went across the landing into Holly's room

"Holly come and have a look at this"

The two of them walked across and stood watching ivy for a bit until eventually Rachel coughed to let her know she was there

Ivy looked very startled when she saw the two of them stood there

"And what do you think you're doing in here at this time young lady, so much for being tired!"

"I needed a wee but someone was in the bathroom so I just waited in here till they were done"

"Really! Maybe we'd better get on the phone to the police then because the only two people living here besides you are me and your sister and we were downstairs so I'm very worried about this other person whose using my bathroom, but I'll take your word for it and get on the phone right now" Rachel said raising her eyebrows

Ivy stared at the ground before mumbling "I'm sorry"

"Why are you in here I thought you were really tired earlier"

"Well I was but then I woke up and I couldn't get back to sleep so I came in here to play"

Rachel sighed heavily, but she couldn't help but let out a little giggle as the sight of ivy talking to all her toys had been quite funny

"Come on, bedtime the two of you"

"But auntie Rachel..." Ivy began

"But auntie Rachel nothing bed now" Rachel said "holly I'm going to tuck your sister in but I'll be along in a sec"

She followed ivy into her room and tucked her back Into bed

"I need to go to the toilet"

"Do you really, or do you just want to stay up for as late as possible?"

"No I do need to"

"We'll be quick about it then, why in earth didn't you just go when we were out there a minute ago"

"Well I was going to when I said but auntie Rachel, and then you stopped me before I could finish so I couldn't"

Rachel sighed but there wasn't really a lot she could say to it

"Well go on then, you've got 1 minute"

Ivy quickly went before going back to bed

"Will you read me a story"

"Now you really are pushing it young lady, no I won't read you a story at twenty to ten its high time you were fast asleep"

Eventually she managed to get ivy settled so went into Holly's room

"Night darling, shout if you need anything" she said before kissing her on the forehead

"I'll leave the light on for 5 minutes but then it goes off okay"

"Okay, night auntie Rachel I love you"

"I love you too my darling"

Rachel then smiled to herself before going back downstairs for a bit

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	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Followed on from my last update

It was really early in the morning, holly hadn't been feeling very we'll ever since she went to bed and kept waking up with a sore stomach but she didn't want to tell Rachel about it as she knew she'd think she was trying to skip school again and after yesterday she didn't think she stood much chance.

She got up and went to the bathroom to see if she could find any calpol in the cupboard as this normally made her feel a bit better whenever she was poorly.

Rachel had woken up and heard someone go across the landing so she went to go and investigate. Holly hadn't bothered to close the door so she saw her rooting round the bathroom cupboard.

"Holly are you okay love" Rachel said when she saw her, this caused holly to jump a bit and quickly turned round

"Oh yeah I'm fine" holly said "I just can't stay asleep, I keep waking up"

"Why can't you sleep?"

"I don't know" holly said

Rachel out her arms around her and gave her a hug "it's horrible when you can't sleep isn't it, come on I'll come and sit with you for a while"

"But it's really late aren't you tired auntie Rachel"

"It doesn't matter, I'll sleep a lot better knowing your soundly asleep rather than tossing and turning, come on let's go"

Rachel led her back to her bedroom and tucked her in, she often did this before holly went to bed even though it was more something you did with kids Ivy's age, but holly always found it quite comforting.

"Do you want me to come in for a cuddle for a little while, or should I just sit next to you"

"Come on with me"

"Okay" Rachel said before getting in next to holly

The two of them cuddled up close, although Rachel had only intended to stay in there for about 10 minutes, she need up falling fast asleep in Holly's bed.

Holly woke up again at about 6:30 and her stomach was even worse but she still didn't want to say anything as she was sure she wouldn't get believed

Rachel woke up a few minutes later and felt a bit startled when she saw that she was in Holly's bed, but then she remembered coming in last night.

"Morning love" she said when she realised holly was awake next to her

"Morning"

"What are you doing awake so early?"

"I don't know, I just woke up"

Rachel noticed holly sounded a bit upset, just like she had done the other night when she found her

"Sweetie is there something on your mind?" Rachel asked gently

"No"

"And yesterday when you came home from school, it was definitely just because you wanted a day off, not because someone's upset you"

"No I just wanted a day off"

"Okay" Rachel said

They laid in bed for a bit longer before both deciding to get up and get dressed

Rachel was surprised that ivy hadn't woken up as normally she would be up really early on a morning

She went into her bedroom and quickly woke her up

"Good morning sleepy" Rachel said laughing

Ivy sat up and rubbed her eyes

"Auntie Rachel I don't think I'll go to school today, I'll just stay in bed"

Rachel burst out laughing at this

"If only it were that simple my love, come on jump up"

Reluctantly ivy got out of bed and started getting changed into her school summer dress

After quite a slow start to the morning they all get in the car and Rachel drove the girls to school, however holly had a really sore stomach now and was nearly in tears as they were driving down

Rachel noticed how upset she was so decided to have a quick chat with her before she went in as she wanted to make sure there wasn't anything serious going on

The two of them were about to get out when Rachel said "holly love can I have a quick word?"

"Yeah" holly replied before getting in the car

"I just wanted to speak to you quickly now Ivy's gone" Rachel said "it's just you seem so quiet and I want you to be honest and tell me if there's something going on"

"No there's nothing I just feel tired that's all"

"Okay, I just wanted to check. Have a good day my love" she said before giving her a quick smile

Holly said goodbye before getting out the car and going into school

All morning holly felt really Ill and all she felt like doing was getting back into bed.

After break it seemed to get even worse and she was nearly in tears, fortunately however her teacher had noticed something wasn't right with her so decided it was best to go over

"Holly quick word outside please"

Holly got out and followed her out wondering why she wanted to speak to her

"Are you poorly again?"

Holly nodded before bursting into tears

"Oh dear why didn't you take another day off if you're still poorly"

Holly tried to wipe her tears away as best she could and decided to tell the truth

"I wasn't actually poorly yesterday, but now I really am but I know my aunt won't believe me when I tell her because she'll think I'm just lying again like I was yesterday but I'm not I promise"

"I believe you, and I really can't have you in school when you're this poorly, look I'll get someone to keep an eye on things in here and I'll speak to your aunt myself okay, let her know you're not just trying to have another day off"

"Thank you" holly mumbled as a few more tears rolled down her cheek as she was feeling very sorry for herself by now.

Her teacher gave her a quick smile, before going to find someone to cover and then walking holly down to the office.

She rang Rachel's work number and luckily she picked up straight away.

She finished up having quite a long chat with her before eventually hanging up and turning her attention back to holly

"She's going to come and get you now, don't worry she believes you"

"Are you sure"

"Yeah I'm sure, she said she didn't think you seemed yourself this morning" she said

"I felt bad when I got up, I just thought that auntie Rachel would say I was lying"

"Well I must admit I am surprised that you lied to me yesterday about being poorly, that isn't like you at all, there's nothing going on is there?"

"No, I'm really sorry about yesterday"

"Well we all make mistakes from time to time, if I were you I wouldn't dwell on it too much love" she said "anyway will you be okay up here till your auntie comes, it's just i should really be getting back to class"

"That's okay" holly said

She sat down on one of the comfy chairs and put her hands to her stomach as it still was very sorry, she closed her eyes and finished off drifting to sleep as she was very tired from not having a good nights sleep the other night.

Holly was still asleep when Rachel came in and only opened her eyes when she started shaking her gently

"Hey darling, you were fast asleep" Rachel said looking a little worried

Holly started to feel all tearful again so Rachel gave her a big hug

"Come on my love let's go home"

"Don't you have to go to work though, you were off yesterday to look after me too"

"Well I was off yesterday anyway because I was in a course and I've arranged some cover, it's not like I'm off very often is it" Rachel said "let's get you home so you get all comfy in some pyjamas and we'll stick a film on or something okay?"

Holly gave a small nod of the head so they both got up and Rachel quickly signed holly out

The two of them then got in the car and Rachel drove home

As soon as they got in holly went upstairs to get into some pyjamas and then they both got on the sofa and put a film on

However when they were about half way through Holly's stomach got really bad so she got up and ran to the toilet.

Rachel watched her as she went feeling quite worried about her now as it really was quite unlike her to be poorly

When holly was there however she saw there was blood all over her knickers. She didn't even register that it was her period as she hadn't heard much about them and none of her friends had started so she felt absolutely terrified

She screamed out for Rachel, before running into the living room in floods of tears

"Auntie Rachel" she said sobbing

Rachel immediately got up and went over to her

"what's happened sweetheart what is it?" Rachel asked worry evident in her voice

"I'm bleeding" holly cried

"What, what do you mean?"

"There was blood everywhere"

Rachel qui icily took hold of Holly's hands

"Did this happen when you just went to the toilet"

Holly just nodded her head in response

"It's okay my love, it's nothing to worry about" Rachel said but really she was very surprised to holly starting this early and felt really sorry for her having to deal with it at such a young age

"Come upstairs with me, it's all going to be fine I promise you"

Holly still felt very shaken up but followed Rachel upstairs

"Let's go through to my bedroom"

The two of them went in and sat in Rachel's bed

"Now love, do you remember a few months back and we talked about periods?"

"Is that what's happening to me?"

"Yes darling that's exactly what it is"

"But at school they said most gilts don't start till at least 11 or 12 I'm only just 10" holly sobbed

"I know and it's not very nice starting this early is it?" Rachel said "but I'm here and I'm going to help you okay, I know what it's like starting your periods, how scary and strange it seems at first, I was quite young when I started mine, not as young as you, but I do understand"

"Do you still have periods now?'"

"Yes I do unfortunately, I'm 40 now aren't I and you usually stop your periods at about 50-55, so I've got another 10 to 15 years of them yet probably"

"But how come I never realise when you have periods, don't you have a really sore stomach and won't everyone know because you have to wear a pad"

"Well as you get older, you just seem to get used to it, all the things that go along with them stay though it's just you've had so many It's not so much of a shock, and the thing with pads Is there designed so no one can see them and when you get older you don't even have to wear them if you don't want, I wear tampons, but I don't think you should try them for a while yet, you should get used to it first"

"Okay" holly said feeling a bit calmer already now she was talking to Rachel and she was being so calm about it

"Now you'll probably bleed for about 3 to 5 days, and you'll have to change your pad about every two to three hours because you don't want it to leak"

"What will there be loads and loads of blood"

"Well it'll be a bit more than you think yeah"

"What will I do if I leak"

"Well you probably won't if you change your pad enough but you're at home all weekend aren't you so it's not like your going to have any embarrassing accidents really is it, after all it's only me you and ivy around"

"I guess so"

"Now there's some pads just in my bathroom cupboard, how about you go for a shower to freshen up a bit and then we'll finish watching that film okay?"

Holly nodded her head

About 20 minutes later she came downstairs and they curled up on the sofa together, holly was feeling a lot better now she'd spoken to Rachel about it but she was still quite shaken up

"How's your stomach now holly?"

"It's a bit better"

"Do you want me to find some medicine?"

Holly nodded her head in response, so Rachel,came back a few minutes later with calpol and a hot water bottle

The day seemed to pass quite quickly after that and before long it was time to pick ivy up from school

"Come on then love let's go and get your sister"

"But I'm in my pyjamas, won't I look a bit strange"

"Well no one will see it's not like you have to get out of the car"

"Okay then"

The two of them then drove to the primary school and Rachel got out

"I'll be two minutes" she said before going over to talk to some of the other mums in the playground

To her surprise ivy was quite late out along with another little girl called Maisie who was the daughter of one of Rachel's quite close friends and the two girls had always been really close, it was even better now ivy had moved in with Rachel because it meant they were even closer to each other so they were always round each other's houses and it meant that Beth and Rachel got to see even more of each other.

"I wonder where the two of them are" Beth said

"God knows, I hope they not be too long though, I've got holly in the car waiting"

"Wasn't she in school today then?"

"No she came home poorly"

"Oh dear it's nothing serious is it?"

"No not really" Rachel replied

A couple of minutes passed and there was still no sign of the two girls so they went looking inside for them, however as soon as they peeked into their classroom the girls teacher came rushing over

"Oh I'm so glad I caught the two of you" mrs jones said "I need to speak to the two of you about the girls, it's pretty serious"

As soon as mrs jones had gone to sit down Beth rolled her eyes at Rachel, both women knew that their teacher had quite a tendency to exaggerate when it came to things the girls had done but the two of them went over anyway

When they were at the table they saw both girls looking quite scared

"What's going on?"

"Well where do I start, the two of them had been completely disrespectful to me all morning, in fact ivy actually told me to shut up at one point. I asked them to stay back at break and after a lot of fuss they did, however when I went outside the two of them ran off and hid in the toilets for the whole of break time, and they were both very rude to me when I spoke to them so I sent them to see mrs Gibbs in her office and they were equally as rude to her, and at lunch time I had a lot of kids come up to me saying they've been hitting too"

"Girls is this true?" Beth asked sounding shocked as it sounded very unlike the two girls, who although could be mischievous at times would never really be naughty

The two of them just nodded their heads in response

"Ivy I hope you realise how much trouble you're in, I am completely appalled at you young lady"

"And the same applies to you Maisie, what on earth do you think you're playing at behaving like that, it's disgraceful" Beth shouted "if you were a kid in my day you'd be getting a nasty clip around the ear, god knows you deserve just you wait till you're dad hears about this"

"I think the two of you owe mrs jones a very good apology" Rachel said

"No we don't want to apologise do we ivy?" Maisie said defiantly

"No" ivy said copying Maisie

"Well then you've just got yourself I a whole lot more trouble" Rachel said sounding very stern

Both women apologised to their teacher for the girls behaviour before practically dragging them outside.

"Ivy when you get in you can go straight to your room and stay there"

"And you can do the same Maisie but you can have a smacked bum to go with it"

"I don't care" Maisie said

"I don't care either"

Both Rachel and Beth were really shocked at the girls behaviour, however having worked with teenagers for many years now, Rachel was a lot better at keeping calm than Beth was.

She grabbed hold of Maisie's shoulder and started shaking her

"You give me any more cheek, believe me you're going to regret it, do you hear?"

Maisie felt quite scared now so just nodded her head

As soon as Maisie got in her car and it was just her and Rachel, ivy began to feel very scared

"I really hope you realise how much trouble you're in, now get in the car"

Ivy didn't say a word and got straight in.

Rachel got in the front next to holly

"What's happened auntie Rachel, you were ages"

"Ask your sister" Rachel replied "in fact you know what I'll tell you, she's been behaving in an appalling way all day, been completely disrespectful to her teacher and she's been hitting other kids"

"Maisie did it too"

"I don't care what Maisie did, Beth's every bit as angry as I am so she'll be getting exactly the same treatment from her mum"

"But you're not my mum so you can't shout at me"

"Oh yes I can when you've behaving like you have today, like it or not I'm in charge of you so it's my responsibility to punish you if you've done something wrong like you have today" Rachel said "now I don't want to hear another word from you till we get home"

They drove back home in silence and Rachel was glad to see ivy had started to look at least a little sorry for it all

As soon as they got in they all took their shoes off, ivy was about to go into the kitchen to get her snack like she always did after school but Rachel quickly stopped her

"Ivy up to your room"

"I'm just getting a snack first"

"No you're not you're going up to your room"

"But then I'll starve, you can't stop me eating that's horrible" ivy shouted

"Don't you raise your voice at me young lady, and when you've been behaving like you have today you can flaming well go without a snack, now up to your room and don't you dare make me say it again"

Ivy stormed up to her room and closed the door behind her

"I don't know what the hells got into her" Rachel sighed

"She's not normally like that" holly said

"I know, and neither is Maisie so god know what on earth is going on with the pair of them"

"Are you really angry with her" holly asked

"Well yes I am actually, she can't go around behaving like that" she sighed "anyway she can stay up in her room for a bit so she has some time to think about what she's done, so do you fancy giving me a hand with some tea"

"Is ivy allowed tea?"

"Of course she is, even if I am angry with her I'm hardly going to make her go without tea am I?"

"What is for tea"

"I've got some stuff to make pizzas with if you fancy?"

"Yeah that'll be nice"

The two of them spent about half an hour making the pizzas before getting them in the oven

"I found some angel delight the other day when I was at tesco, do you fancy having that for pudding"

"Yes please, I haven't had that since I was about Ivy's age"

"Come to think of it neither have I"

Holly got on with some homework for a bit while Rachel read through her emails, until the pizzas were ready

Rachel got them out and started slicing them up

"Right I'd better go and get your sister down hadn't I" Rachel Said

Rachel went upstairs and into Ivy's room and found her sat on her bed

"Come and get some tea" Rachel said

Ivy immediately got up and went downstairs with Rachel and sat on her chair

The three of them started eating, Rachel decided not to say anything to ivy at the table thinking it wasn't really the right place and she never really liked there to be any conflict while they were all sat down eating

Her and holly were chatting but ivy just stayed quiet and ate her tea, her eyes swimming with tears. Rachel noticed this but didn't say anything but when she saw that she'd started crying properly and was fiercely trying to wipe her tears away as she obviously didn't want anyone to see she decided to say something

"Ivy would you like to be excused?" Rachel asked

Ivy just nodded her head before running off to her room

Rachel sighed feeling a bit bad now

"Should I go and check on her?" Holly asked as she didn't really like seeing her little sister all upset

"No it's okay I'm going to go and have a talk soon as I've finished my pizza"

Once they'd finished eating Rachel went upstairs, she grabbed some toilet paper so ivy could dry her eyes

She went into her room and sat down next to her on her bed

"Dry your eyes" she said handing her a bit of tissue

Ivy took it and carefully started dabbing at her eyes

"Auntie Rachel I'm really sorry for being bad"

"Sorry isn't really enough though is it ivy? And when you really are sorry you show it, but you didn't earlier when you had the chance to apologise to mrs jones did you?"

"No" ivy sobbed

"So I don't think you're really sorry at all about what happened are you, your just sorry you got into trouble for it"

"I only did it because Maisie made me"

"I don't believe that ivy, it is very unlike you and Maisie though and all I can really say is I hope you've learnt your lesson"

"I have"

"Well there's not a lot else I can say, other than I'm thoroughly disappointed in you ivy, and don't be expecting to play round at friends houses for quite a few days"

"Okay" ivy sobbed

"I'm not going to make you stay in your room all night but it will be an early bed and bath for you tonight"

Ivy decided to stay up in her room anyway as she didn't really fancy coming down and at about quarter to 7 Rachel ran her bath and got her in.

Although she wasn't as mad as she was before she still wanted ivy to realise why what she'd done was so wrong, so she wasn't as gentle with her as she usually was.

She only gave her a quick bath before getting her into some pyjamas and dried her hair off

"Right go to the toilet and brush your teeth, I'll get your water"

Rachel went downstairs and brought ivy up some water and quickly got her to bed

"I'll see you in the morning ivy" Rachel said

"Night auntie Rachel I love you" ivy said sounding very upset

Rachel had been about to just walk out but she didn't really have the heart to just go so she just said "I love you too" before walking out

Ivy couldn't get to sleep for ages because she was so upset about everything and when she did she didn't sleep very well at all. She woke up at about 11 and realised she must have had an accident while she had been asleep. She started to cry because she felt really embarrassed about it because it hadn't happened since she'd just started living with Rachel and had felt really unsettled. When she moves in it had happened on quite a lot of nights for the first couple of weeks, but Rachel had always been lovely about it and as she got more used to living there it seemed to have stopped . she felt a bit scare because she didn't know what Rachel was going to say, although she'd always been really nice about it before she didn't know if she was going to get angry with her because she was still annoyed about before

She knew she had to tell her though so got out of bed and went across to her room, she saw the light was on and realised Rachel was still awake, sat up in bed with her glasses on reading her book.

She glanced up and saw ivy stood outside her door

"Ivy what are you doing out of bed?" She asked still sounding quite strict

Ivy suddenly felt really scared so started walking off

"Ivy come back here please" Rachel called

Ivy did as she was told and went back into Rachel's room

"Now what are you doing out of bed?" She asked again however her voice was a bit softer this time

"I'm really sorry auntie Rachel"

"What for?" She sacked however then she noticed her wet pyjama bottoms and realised she must have had an accident

"I didn't realise I had to go and I wet my bed"

"Okay" Rachel said calmly "well I'm going to come and sort it out now"

Ivy started sobbing getting quite hysterical now

Rachel quickly put her book down and got out of bed and went into Ivy's room

Ivy was still crying when she got back to her room, Rachel sighed but she couldn't help feeling very sorry for her and couldn't really stay angry when she was this upset so put her arms around her

"Are you mad with me for having an accident?"

"No Ivy, you know I'd never get mad with you for that, it was an accident it wasn't as though you could help it" Rachel said "look it's okay I'll have it sorted in a minute"

"Will you tell holly about it?"

"No I promise I won't darling, now why don't you get into some nice clean things"

"Auntie Rachel I really didn't mean to" ivy sobbed

"Ivy it's okay, it doesn't matter"

"Really"

"Yes love, I know you were in trouble with me earlier but I'm not going to tell you off for something you can't do anything about"

Rachel quickly sorted her out before taking hold of Ivy's hand and leading her downstairs as she wanted to have a talk with her.

Once she'd put her stuff in the wash she went through to the living room with her and put ivy on her knee and let her cry into her for a bit

"Hey it's okay ivy" she soothed "I'm not mad at you not really, I can tell your sorry by how upset you are and I bet that's why you had an accident isn't it huh?"

Ivy nodded her head

"Oh sweetheart" she sighed "now I know today isn't going to happen again, I don't know why you did it and you and I both know how naughty and wrong it was of you but regardless of all that the last thing i want is you getting so upset you finish up getting in a right state. I think you know how disappointed I was when I heard about it, so I don't think there's much point going on and on about it is there"

"No"

"So I won't mention it again, just please make sure there isn't a repeat"

"There won't be

"Okay, now come here you, give me a proper cuddle"

Ivy snuggled into her auntie properly and began to relax Into her

Although she was still a bit tearful when she went back upstairs she certainly felt a lot better than she did before.

"Auntie Rachel please can I sleep on your bed tonight"

"Okay then just this once" Rachel said

The two of them got into Rachel's bed and Rachel put her arms around ivy

"Auntie Rachel?"

"Mmm" Rachel replied sounding sleepy

"When you were 5 did you ever do anything naughty"

"No I was a good as gold, now get to sleep" Rachel said laughing to herself slightly, knowing fine well that when she was 5 she'd been a lot naughtier than ivy and had done far worse than what ivy had done today

"Not ever"

"Maybe once or twice" Rachel said giggling "I remember throwing my ball full pelt into the window and it smashing, your grandma went absolutely mad with me"

"Even scarier than you earlier"

"I'd have seemed like your fairy godmother compared to what my mum did to me when she saw the smashed window"

They talked for a bit longer until they both fell fast asleep

Please review xxxxxxxxx


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Hey so at the beginning of the fic I think I said Holly was 10 in year 5 however for the purposes of the next chapter or so I've had to change it round a bit so she's 10 but in year 6, know that's a bit confusing so apologies :)

It was a Sunday and Holly woke up at about 2am, she'd been having an awful sleep so far and had been really unsettled. She'd been that way for most of the week both at home and at school and everyone was starting to get a bit worried about her, he truth was holly had a lot of things on her mind at the moment, it was her mums birthday today so obviously that was causing a bit of upset but she was also starting her end of school tests on Monday which was also getting her quite stressed out.

In the end she got out of bed and crept downstairs and tried to relax onto one of the sofas however she was finding it pretty hard.

It was only when Rachel woke up about half an hour later to go to the loo that she realised a light in the living room was on downstairs, so she wrapped her dressing gown around herself and went downstairs.

She opened the door slowly as she didn't want to startle whoever was down their, she saw it was holly curled up on the sofa.

"Holly" Rachel said before sitting next to her "what are you doing down here my love?"

Suddenly tears started rolling down Holly's cheek so Rachel pulled her close

"Hey what's wrong?" She asked gently, though she was clearly very worried

Holly shook her head, to say she didn't want to talk about it but continued to cry

"Hey come on nothing's as bad as all this is it huh?" Rachel said

In the end holly just cuddled into Rachel for a bit before sitting up

"I'm going to go back to bed now" she mumbled

"Not before you tell me what the matter is you're not"

"I don't want to talk about it, I'm really tired"

Rachel sighed but knew better than to try and lush holly; if she'd made up her mind that she didn't want to talk about it, she never would.

She took hold of her hand and the two of them started walking back upstairs, however when they were about half way up they saw ivy walking across the stairs

"Ivy" Rachel said quietly so as not to startle her

When she didn't get a response she quickly went over and realised she must be sleepwalking. There'd been a few instances like this since ivy had moved in with Rachel, at first Rachel had got really worried about it As she'd never come across it before but she'd gradually got used to it after it had happened a few times

"Holly you go back to bed, I'm going to try and get you're sister to do the same, I'll be along in a minute or so to tuck you in"

"Okay" holly said before going back up to her room

Rachel followed ivy as she started walking into Rachel's study, however she suddenly woke up and Got a bit frightened

"It's okay love I'm here look" she whispered "you've just been sleepwalking, come on let's get you back to bed"

"No I'm scared" ivy whimpered

"There's nothing to be frightened of, look you're just at home nice and safe"

Ivy did start to calm down and started walking back to her bedroom however when she was there she realised she needed a wee and started fidgeting

"Ivy do you have to go to the toilet?"

Ivy nodded her head

"Off you go then"

Once ivy was back Rachel tried to tuck her back in, in her bed but she started moaning saying she wanted to go in Rachel's and in the end Rachel decided she was way too tired for an argument and just wanted to go back to sleep so decided to let her come in with her just to shut her up.

She went back into Holly's room but she was fast asleep already, Rachel smiled to herself when she realised holly and kicked all the sheets off already before going over and tucking her back in properly and planting a kiss on her cheek.

She then went back into her room with ivy and the two of them got into bed

"Auntie Rachel?"

"Yes"

"What time am I going to Sophie's birthday party tomorrow"

"About 2 her mum said, now come on go to sleep"

Ivy was quiet for a few minutes but then said "auntie Rachel"

"Ivy what is it, it's 2:30 in the morning and I'd quite like to have some sleep" Rachel snapped, she didn't mean to shout at her but when she was tired she'd always start snapping at the kids even if she didn't mean to

Ivy felt upset when she heard her auntie shout so just said "I'm sorry, it doesn't matter"

Rachel then felt a bit bad when she heard "No darling I'm sorry, auntie Rachel didn't mean to shout, what did you want love?"

"You know when mummy died and I came to live with you, well who will I live with if you die?"

Rachel couldn't help but laugh at this, children could be blunt at times

"Well I'm not planning on dying any time soon"

"Yes but neither was my mum but she did"

"I know love but the thing is it's very unusual for something like that to happen, very sad, but I promise it doesn't happen very often" Rachel said "anyway are you going to go to sleep"

Ivy nodded her head

The two of them both slept very well and Rachel didn't wake up until 8:30 which was late for her, normally even on a weekend she'd be up at about 7

When she woke up she saw ivy was still fast asleep so crept out of bed and wrapped a dressing gown around herself before going downstairs

Rachel was surprised however when she realised that holly was already down there

She went over and sat down at the table with her

"Hello love, what you doing down here, I'd have thought you'd have fancied a nice lie in with it being a Sunday and everything"

"I woke up quite early...you know with stuff on my mind" holly mumbled

Rachel knew today was going to be a tough day for both of the girls with it being their mums birthday and everything and she wanted to make sure they knew that they could both talk to her if they needed to.

Ivy had just woken up and was about to go in the kitchen when she heard that her aunt and sister were talking

"Oh love I know how much you miss your mum and it must be so hard for you and ivy, especially today with it being her birthday and everything" Rachel said before squeezing Holly's shoulder supportively

It was only then that ivy remembered that it was her mums birthday, she stood frozen to the spot, she couldn't believe that she'd forgotten about her mums birthday and felt truly awful about it thinking that her mum would be really upset when she realised she'd forgotten her.

It was only a couple of minutes later when Rachel opened the door that she saw ivy stood there

"Oh good morning love, did you have an okay sleep in the end?"

Ivy just nodded her head before going into the kitchen without speaking

Rachel thought this was a bit odd as normally ivy would always come and have a cuddle first thing on a morning, however she didn't look too far into it and just put it down to ivy being tired, and started getting drinks ready for breakfast.

"Right what does everyone want for breakfast"

"Please can I have crumpets?" Holly asked

"Yeah sure, I'm glad you said that actually because I bought a load earlier that need using up, what's about you ivy, what do you fancy?" Rachel asked ivy

Ivy just shrugged her shoulders in response

"Well that's helpful isn't it?" Rachel said laughing "come on tell me what you want to eat"

"Nothing" ivy said

"Well you've got to have something to keep you going till lunch, otherwise you'll just be snacking all through the morning"

"I'm not hungry and you can't make me eat" ivy said before getting up

She was about to walk back up to her room however Rachel stopped her and pulled her back gently

"Right what's up?" she asked

"Nothing"

"Well why are you acting all moody then? Come on try and be a bit nicer please"

"I'm not being moody, you're moody with me sometimes and nobody ever tells you to stop, it's not fair"

Rachel was about to tell her off for being cheeky but then realised all this might be because ivy was getting upset about it being her mums birthday and everything so she crouched down so she was on her level

"Ivy are you upset about your mum love?" She asked gently

Ivy quickly pulled away from her though before saying "no I'm not, leave me alone"

Rachel sighed heavily but didn't say anything, thinking it was probably for the best if she just gave her some time, she'd got to know ivy very well over the last few months and knew that so writes she would get herself into awful moods but it was best to just ignore them and give her some time to settle down and more often than not it would all be forgotten after an hour or so

"God knows what's got into her" Rachel said to holly

"I'm sure she'll be okay in a bit just ignore her" holly soda knowing all too well what her little sister could be like at times

"Yeah I think I will for now" Rachel sighed "what do you fancy doing today"

"I think I'm going to go over some stuff for the maths test tomorrow, you know I'm hopeless at it" holly said she was laughing however Rachel could see she was really on edge about it all

"Wrong answer, whatever we do decide to do today will not finish up with you studying, you've done enough of that over the last few weeks and I think you need a day off" Rachel said "how about we go to that park that ivy loves, it'll be nice and peaceful around there and we can take a picnic over, it's a lovely day, then Ivy's going to her party at 2 so we'll have the house to ourselves"

"That'll be nice"

"Yeah it will, a bit of peace and quiet huh"

Rachel then made got some crumpets ready and the two of them had their breakfast

"Right we'll both go and get changed then shall we"

"Yeah"

They were about to go upstairs when Rachel said "and holly, I know it's going to be a thought day today, with it being your mums birthday, I'm not going to make you talk about it, but if you do want to have a chat, you know that I'm here don't you just pull me aside okay?"

"Okay" holly said

The two of them then went upstairs and got changed.

Rachel was just doing her makeup when holly opened her door

"What is it love?" She asked

"Please can I borrow your straighteners?"

"Yeah course you can, I'll tell to what why don't you let me do it for you, I'm just going to be 2 minutes"

"Oh would you?" Holly said

"Yeah sure" Rachel said smiling

Holly was glad Rachel was going to do it for her, she hadn't quite got the knack of how to do it properly yet and would often finish up burning herself when she did try and Rachel always did a really nice job

She waited on Rachel's bed whilst her auntie finished off her makeup and then went to sit at her dressing table while the straighteners were heating up

"How about instead of straightening it we curl it with the straighteners, my friend Claire showed me how to do It the other day when I went round here for drinks, it looks really good and it'll work perfectly on your hair because it's so long"

"Yeah okay, I don't understand how you can curl it with straighteners though"

"Well I suppose it does sound a bit odd doesn't it? All you do it you kind of twist it round and the pull down look they've heated up now so I can show you"

Rachel showed her how to do it and holly was really surprised at how easy it was

She was delighted when she looked in the mirror about half an hour earlier and saw what a good job her auntie had done

"Thank you auntie Rachel it looks so nice" she said sounding really pleased "I wish I was going out with friends so I could show them"

"Well if you don't wash your hair tonight when you go in the bath hopefully it should stay in till tomorrow at school"

"I hope so" she said

Rachel then decided to go and check up on ivy and see if her mood had calmed down at all and to check she was getting ready

When she went in she found her in her pyjamas sat on her bed

"Come in ivy get dressed, we're going to the park for a picnic later"

"I'll stop here"

"What by yourself? Somehow I think social services would have something to say about me leaving a 5 year old on their own, now come on cheer up for me"

Ivy sighed but got out of bed

"What do you fancy wearing today"

"I don't know" ivy mumbled

Rachel went in her wardrobe and found a summer dress for her to wear, that she thought would be nice considering how hot it was outside today

"Come on then get changed"

"Not with you here"

"Ivy you've got changed In front of me loads of times, I see you in the bath every night don't i?" Rachel sighed wondering why ivy was being so awkward

Eventually she managed to get ivy to get changed but she was still being really stroppy and Rachel was beginning to loose her patience with her

"Right what's happened?" She asked

"I've already told you that nothing's happened" ivy said

"Well something obviously has or you wouldn't be being so moody would you?"

"I just want to be left on my own"

Rachel rolled her eyes, she didn't think a five year old would be anywhere near as moody as a teenager but ivy was showing her different

She left Ivy's room for a bit while she went and got some stuff together for their picnic

At about 11:30 she shouted both girls down, however when she went into the hall she saw ivy was already sat down on one of the stairs, with tears rolling down her cheeks

Rachel signed before going over and sitting next to her

"How about we go and get you a tissue?" She said

Ivy didn't say anything but followed Rachel up

"I don't want holly to see me crying"

"She won't see you love, come on we'll go through to my room"

Rachel quickly led her into the bathroom and dabbed at her face

"There we go, you can't even tell you've been crying now come and sit on the bed with me"

Ivy and Rachel both went to sit down and ivy started crying again

"Oh dear we'll have to have another dab at your face before we go down"

Rachel gave her a minute or so before saying "what's happened?"

"Mummy will be really angry with me, I forgot it was her birthday until I heard you and holly talking this morning, she'll think I don't love her anymore" ivy cried

"Oh sweetheart, don't think that" Rachel Said "hey now you listen to me, you're mummy loves you so much and she'll carry on loving you wherever she is now and she'll also know just how much you love her. I think that she'll be much much, much more upset about seeing you all sad than she would have been about you forgetting her birthday"

"So you don't think she'll be angry"

"No darling I don't think she'll be angry at all, you're only 5 years old ivy, god I'm 40 and I still can't remember when my mums birthday is" Rachel said laughing

"Really" ivy said starting to feel a bit better

"Yes ivy really, I think the most important thing is that you still remember your mum and have a think about her from time to time, I think that'll be good enough for her" Rachel said

Ivy finally started to relax after speaking to Rachel and cuddled into her

"There now are you feeling a little bit happier yet?" She asked

Ivy nodded her head so Rachel quickly led her into the bathroom to dry her tears up again before going downstairs

"What kept you auntie Rachel, I've been down here ages" holly moaned

"Me and ivy have been having a little chat"

"Is she still being all stroppy?" Holly asked grinning

"No she's fine now aren't you ivy?"

Ivy gave a little nod of the head feeling a bit embarrassed by it all now

"Anyway she's no where near as stroppy as you are sometimes" Rachel teased

"I'm never stroppy" she protested

"Hmm I beg to differ, anyway are we going to go and have this picnic or not, I don't know about you lot but I'm starving" Rachel said smiling

The three of them then all got in the car and went out

The day seemed to go by pretty quickly after that, Rachel and holly both had some nice time together while ivy was out at her party however it didn't seem long before it was time to get ivy in the bath and ready for bed.

"Auntie Rachel I'm not tired yet" ivy said while she was in the bath

"Aren't you, well I'm very surprised at that you were up very late last night"

"I'll try and go to sleep" ivy sighed

"Good, and no sleepwalking tonight" Rachel said laughing

"I'll try my best not to" ivy said seriously "I can't remember sleepwalking last night"

"I'd quite like to sleepwalk, just so I know what it feels like" Rachel said "having said that when I was your age I think I used to do a bit of sleepwalking myself! mum once found me tidying up my bedroom while I was asleep"

"Really" ivy said laughing

"Yeah it's weird when you think about it isn't it" she said "anyway are you going to be a good girl and go to sleep"

"Yeah, but auntie Rachel I have a tummy ache"

"Well I'm sure it'll be better in the morning come on sleep"

"No it's really sore"

"Well that came on very suddenly" Rachel sighed but she started rubbing it anyway "look I'll do a deal with you I'll rub your tummy for a bit if you close your eyes and try and be a good girl and go to sleep"

"Okay" ivy said

Rachel flicked off the light and started rubbing Ivy's stomach for her and before long she saw that she'd fallen fast asleep.

Rachel went downstairs and spent a bit of time with holly, however she was being very quiet and Rachel knew this was because she was feeling nervous about tomorrow

At about 8:15 holly decided to go up to bed, knowing she needed a good nights sleep

"Night auntie Rachel"

"Sweetheart are you sure you want to go up to bed now? It's very early you know"

"I know, I'm just wanting to get a good nights sleep"

"Okay night then darling sleep well and I'll see you in the morning" Rachel said "and I love you lots"

As soon as holly went up to bed she started worrying even more

She tried to go to sleep but just couldn't and time seemed to be going really quickly.

She started to cry when she saw it was 11 o clock as she knew she needed to go to sleep however she just couldn't seem to be able to.

Eventually she crept out of bed and went into Rachel's room

"Holly what's the matter love" Rachel said looking up from her book and seeing holly in tears

"I can't sleep, and i know I won't do well tomorrow if I don't go to sleep now" holly sobbed

"Oh love, come on come into bed with me"

Holly went over and climbed in next to Rachel

"So have you not had any sleep yet?" She asked

Holly shook her head

"Well the worst thing is to think about sleep when you're trying to get to sleep it's best just to just not think about and you'll just end up drifting off" she said "are you worried about tomorrow?"

"Yes" holly mumbled

"You're going to be absolutely fine my love, trust me, look I probably shouldn't say this to you but I'm going to anyway, there really not that important you know, I know schools been putting a lot of pressure on you but once you move to secondary school no one even looks at them and that's a promise"

"Really"

"Yes darling really, and irrespective of how you do nothing's going to make me love you any less you know?"

"I love you auntie Rachel" holly mumbled cuddling into her properly

"I love you too"

"Please can I stay in here with you tonight?"

"Yes my love of course you can, I'll turn this light off then we can just have a talk until we both fall asleep okay?"

In the end the two of them finished up going to sleep pretty much as soon as the light was flicked off and holly was feeling a lot better now.

Please review xxxxxxx


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Just a quick message to the guest who reviewed- I know that I don't update much but I really don't have the time with my a level exams and everything, as well as having a part time job, obviously this takes priority so I can't update as much as I would like. As to the comment about reviews, tbh I'm not that bothered if people review or not; I don't really write this for reviews because I understand that Rachel was an old character that most people have lost Interest in and as is previously stated I don't have the time to update as much as people would expect. If you've spoken to me before on here, I must ask why you didn't just PM me as opposed to leaving your review anonymously, I honestly would not have minded and would just answer honestly.

It was a Saturday night and Rachel had finally managed to get ivy off to bed, after trying for the last 2 hours to get her to sleep. She'd been to a party earlier in the afternoon and had finished up having loads of sweets and when she'd finally come home had been hyper all afternoon and it was driving Rachel crazy.

She tiptoed out of her room so as not to wake her and went downstairs, hoping to have a nice upset evening with Holly without anymore interruptions. Holly had been doing her year 6 SATs all week and was feeling really tired for it all and a little bit down as well as some of them hadn't gone quite as she'd hoped.

When Rachel whet downstairs she found her curled up on the sofa, so she went and sat down next to her.

"Hey love, you fancy some chocolate or something and we can watch tv for half an hour or so before your bedtime?" Rachel asked

"Okay then, that'd be nice" holly said giving out a small smile

Rachel smiled back at her before going into the kitchen to get her some chocolate and a drink

When she came back she saw that she had tears in her eyes so rushed straight over to her and sat down beside her

"What is it love?"

"I don't know, it's just everything " holly sobbed

"Oh darling I know these last few weeks haven't been that easy for you what with all this ridiculous pressure from school and everything but just think you've got your last one on Monday and then there all over, we can start getting ready for summer"

"Yeah I suppose" holly mumbled "I can't wait to go away, me and mum only went away once when we were really young"

"Where did you go?" Rachel asked

It was always weird for Rachel when the girls mentioned something they did when they were little, mainly because Rachel barely saw any of the girls when they were growing up so she'd missed such a big chunk of their lives out

"Majorca I think, it was really nice, but then we all, finished up with food poisoning from this weird little restaurant we went to when we were there and the food tasted all funny"

"Oh god, well lots hope that doesn't happen when we go away, I don't particularly fancy dealing with food poisoning in America" Rachel said laughing slightly

Holly smiled before turning her attention back to the tv. There was something she really wanted to ask Rachel about however she'd never quite got the confidence to do it, but she knew that it would keep bugging her until she asked about it

"Auntie Rachel please can I ask you something?"

"Yes of course you can"

"And you promise you won't get mad or anything, I mean you can just say if you don't want to talk about it but it's just I've kind of always wanted to know"

"Oh gosh I think you're going to have to ask me, it all sounds quite interesting to me" Rachel said laughing wondering what on earth it was that holly was going to ask

"Why did you and my mum hate each other so much"

Rachel didn't say anything for a moment or so, thinking how she could put all this to holly, who was still after all very young, in some ways she'd rather not talk about it all however she felt as though she owed holly some sort of explanation

"Oh love it really is all very complicated, it'll take me ages to explain it all"

"It's fine if you don't want to talk...I've just kind of always wanted to know"

"Well then I think we'd better have a talk about it all then, though I think we'll need another hot chocolate while we chat about it all okay?"

"Yeah okay" holly said

Rachel weren't into the kitchen and made two jot chocolates before going and sitting over next to holly

"The thing is my love, when me and your mum were little we didn't have a very happy life at home"

"Why not?"

"Well me and my mum never used to get on very well and when I was about 15 I started making a lot of awful mistakes, I used to start bunking off school I'd smoke, I'd do all sorts of silly silly things that would make me go completely mad if I thought that you were even thinking of, and all this started to drive me and your mum away and eventually when we were about 17 we ran away from home and..."

Rachel was about to continue when suddenly she heard ivy running down the stairs

"Oh love I'm sorry, I'll have to go and see to ivy quickly that girls been a nightmare all afternoon but I promise we'll continue this in a couple of minutes okay"

"Yeah that's fine" holly said

Rachel sighed before going out to just below the landing and saw ivy running around

"Stop that" Rachel said firmly

Ivy took no notice however and continued running around the landing. Rachel had no idea what she was doing but realised she was going to have to go up

She ran upstairs and picked ivy up in her arms, luckily she was very light so this was never too much of a challenge

"Get off me" ivy screamed while kicking her legs frantically

"Ivy pack it in" Rachel said firmly

"No I want to play" ivy shouted

"Ivy I mean it if you don't stop this, they'll be no going out with friends tomorrow you'll have to stay inside all day with me, which I'm sure you don't want to do the day before you're stuck in school for the whole week do you?"

"Put me down"

Rachel sighed heavily but realised she was going to drop ivy if she continued to kick her so she carefully put her down on the ground but firmly took hold of her hand

"Now are you going to be a good sensible girl or not?" Rachel asked

Ivy thought about continuing to be cheeky however realised that she was just going to get in lots of trouble if she carried on behaving like this so just nodded her head

"I think this will be the last party for a few weeks though young lady, I don't fancy this every week"

"But what about Sasha's horse riding party next week" ivy said tears starting to fill her eyes as she'd been really looking forward to this all week

"Well we're just going to have to see what you're behaviour is like aren't we?"

Ivy hooded her head and stared down at the floor

"Now I think you must be very tried by now, so come on let's get you to bed"

Rachel took her hand and led her into her bedroom and got her to lie down

All the jumping about combined with a load of sweets however was not exactly a good combination for ivy and she suddenly sat bolt upright in bed and was violently sick everywhere including all over Rachel

"Oh ivy!" Rachel exclaimed "couldn't you have said if you were feeling sick so we could have rushed you away to the bathroom"

Hearing Rachel snap at her caused tears to fill in Ivy's eyes and she burst into tears

When she saw how upset ivy was she couldn't help but feel a bit bad for snapping so Rachel tried to calm down a bit despite the fact she was now covered in sick

"I'm really sorry" ivy sobbed

"Ah well it's not the end of the world I suppose" Rachel sighed "I'm sorry for shouting at you darling"

Ivy continued to cry as Rachel started to get all the bed sheets off and get them in the wash

"Come on love, no need for tears, your not in trouble, auntie Rachel was just a bit shocked that's all" Rachel said "I think we need to pop you in the bath though"

Once Rachel had started running the bath she went into her bedroom and quickly got changed into some comfy pyjamas

Ivy sat on her bed and then a couple of minutes later Rachel shouted her through for her bath so she came running across

"Ew I smell really horrible"

"Well that might have something to do with the fact you're covered in sick, come in let's get you changed quickly" Rachel said

She took all of Ivy's clothes off before getting her in the bath and washing her hair out

"Aren't you going to get out all of my toys like you normally do when I have a bath?" Ivy asked sounding upset

"Now you really are pushing it young lady, no I'm not going to get all your toys out at this time of night, you're having a very quick bath and then it'll be straight to bed for you"

"Okay" ivy sighed

As soon as she'd finished washing her, Rachel got ivy straight out of the bath and into some clean pyjamas

"Right when we get you back to bed this time do you promise it's not going to end up with you being sick everywhere?" Rachel asked

"Well I don't think it will, but I can't promise"

"What so you mean you can't promise, tell me you're not going to be sick again and if you are can you get to the toilet sharpish please"

"Well no I'm pretty sure it won't happen but I'm just not certain, so I can't promise because I can't see in to the future and then if it did happen It'd make me a liar because I promised it wouldn't happen, and miss jones and you say lying is always wrong and when we had to go to church once at school they said if you lie you'd be breaking one of gods rules so you'd go to hell"

Rachel couldn't help but burst out laughing at all of this, sometimes children would think about things very deeply she thought to herself

"Well then I suppose you're right not to promise anything"

"Auntie Rachel why don't we go to church? The priest said we should try and go to church every Sunday"

"Well because not everyone has to go to church darling, it's something you choose to do and I've just never really gone except for a few weddings and things"

"But why don't you choose to go"

"Well I've just never really gone love"

"Do you not believe in god auntie Rachel?"

"Erm well I don't know really, I never really given much thought to it to be honest with you, why do you believe in god ivy?"

"Yes I do, because that's what all my teachers say. When will you decide if you believe in him or not?"

"I don't know love, when I've had time to have a proper think about it, and I'm not distracted by you messing around so much you make yourself sick"

"Well please will you have a proper think about it tonight, and then tell me when you wake me up in the morning whether you believe in him or not"

"Yes okay I'll try and do that with you as long as you're a good girl and go straight to sleep" Rachel said however she was finding it increasingly difficult to try and keep a straight face

"Do you promise auntie Rachel"

"Yes I promise, now bed straight away mrs"

"Can I go for a wee first?"

"Oh ivy why didn't you say you needed to go when we were in the bathroom not two minutes ago!" Rachel exclaimed

"Well I didn't need it then"

Rachel sighed children really did know how to test people patience at times

"Well you can't be this desperate then" she remarked

"Well I'm not but I'll have to wait a whole night while I'm asleep and then I'm going to get really desperate because there's lots and lots of hours while I'm asleep where I can't go"

"You know what just go, but be quick about it, you've got one minute to go and get back and I mean that I'm it in you in my watch so any messing around then they'll be trouble"

Much to her surprise ivy did come back really quickly and got straight into bed just like Rachel had asked her to

"Oh good girl love, now are you going to go straight to sleep for me"

"Yes I'm starting to get sleepy now"

"I'll stay with you for a few minutes just until you drift off okay love" Rachel said

It took a while but eventually ivy did drift off back to sleep again

Rachel went out praying it would be the last time ivy woke up during the night

She went downstairs and saw holly still sat on the sofa

"Where have you been auntie Rachel, you were nearly half an hour"

"Oh I've just been up with your sister she was messing on for ages and ended up being sick everywhere and guess who had the delightful job of sorting everything out"

Holly couldn't help but let out a small laugh at this

"Anyway do you want to carry on talking about what we were having a chat about before?" Rachel asked giving her a quick smile

"Yeah but only if you don't mind"

"I don't mind one but love" she said "so like I wS saying me and your mum didn't have very nice lives at all, but when we ran away it turns out things got even worse, neither of us had any money or any job so things were pretty tough and we finished up sleeping out on the streets for a couple of nights"

"Oh my god really"

"Yeah it wasn't a nice life at all for either of us love, and well let's just say I made some pretty stupid mistakes that I seriously regret now" she sighed "but things like that are always going to drive a wedge between you and the people you love"

"But you and mum didn't fall out till you both much older didn't you?"

"Well yes that's true but the thing is darling when things were as bad as they were there was no way we were ever going to have the type of relationship sisters normally do, we were both at each other's throats constantly those two years we were together and even when we got out of all that nothing was ever the same again, we both said things we'd never really forgive each other for, though we did still keep in touch but then when you were born and I wanted to come and see you things got even worse, I think you're mum suffered quite badly being a single mum and all and was having a pretty rough time with it all. It didn't take much for her to snap and eventually we finished up in a massive scrap because I'd made some remark about how it was ridiculous the amount you were going out when she had you, anyway that really sparked everything off and we ended up in a massive row and vowed never to see each other again, only you have no idea how much I regret all of this now. Life's too short for arguments like that and I don't think I'll ever really forgive myself for the way things finished out between us"

"So it was because of me and ivy you and mum fell out"

"No love of course it wasn't, me and your mum hadn't been on very good terms at all for years, that comment of mine was just the fuse for everything, but something was bound to happen regardless"

"Do you love mum, even though you fell out with her"

"Oh sweetheart of course I love her, you'll never stop loving your sister regardless of what happens"

"I do to think I could ever fight with ivy not properly anyway"

"Well try and stick to that, like in said before life really is too short for grudges"

"I miss mum still you know"

"Of course you do my love, and you'll carry on missing her all your life, it's one thing that will never change no matter what"

Holly didn't say anything but cuddled into Rachel properly and Rachel cuddled her back

They stayed up for about 15 minutes but then Rachel realised the time

"Oh gosh it's getting very late, high time we both went to bed I think my love"

"Yeah I'm really tired"

"Come on then, you get yourself sorted for bed I'll be up to tuck you in a couple of minutes"

"Okay" holly said before walking out of the living room

She was about half way up the stairs when suddenly she heard a load knock at the door, she jumped when she heard it as it was very unusual for someone to be round at this time

"Auntie Rachel" she shouted sounding quite frightened when they didn't stop knocking

Rachel had heard the knocking and went running to the hall

"Oh my god who on earth can that me at this time at night" she sighed "well whoever it is they sound pretty impatient don't they,mi think we better see who it is"

She went over to her door and undid the lock and when she did she saw it was her older brothers two daughters, there was Jess who was 13 and Millie who had just turned 7

Jess came barging in without even a hello and Rachel was shocked to see her with all her suitcases, Millie followed her close behind but she looked quite frightened

"God you took your bloody time opening that door, We were freezing outside" she said as she came in "shit this suitcase is so annoying the wheels on it keep locking, give us a hand will you Rach"

At first Rachel was so shocked to even speak

"Right firstly don't use language like that in my house and secondly what the hell are you doing here"

"We're moving in, i text you half an hour ago"

"Oh well that's that sorted then isn't it" Rachel said sarcastically "social services ring up, no I haven't seen or even spoken to Jess's parents, but it's all okay she sent me a bloody text message"

"Isn't that a slight contradiction of what you just said"

"Jess what are you on about" Rachel said feeling really dazed by all this

"You told me not to swear and you just did"

"Oh yeah because that's right at the top of our prioritises at the moment"

"Well it was obviously important enough for you to tell me off about it"

Holly was still stood on the stairs and was giggling as Jess continued to talk back to her auntie, she'd met Jess a few times as her mum and her mums brother had always got on quite well and both Rachel and Mel were close to him, holly had always found Jess very funny and couldn't believe the things she'd say sometimes

"Oh hey holly, how's you?"

"Jess shut up for two seconds will you, I can't believe how laid back you are about all this it's very serious you know!"

"Well I didn't say anything I just asked a question"

"Well in doing you said something didn't you" Rachel said raising her eyebrows

"Alright there's no need to turn into my bloody teacher, you know what I meant, I just meant I didn't say anything bad"

"You know what we need to talk about this, holly be a good girl and go up to bed please love"

Holly would have quite liked to have stayed up and watch the argument progress between her aunt and Jess however didn't really want to argue with Rachel when she was clearly very stressed out as it was, so just went up to bed

"Jess kitchen now" Rachel said

Jess took hold of Millie's hand and followed her aunt through to the kitchen

"Right what's happened, why are you here"

"Well basically Dad was being a complete dick and ..."

"Can we explain without the use of that sort of language please, what on earth makes you think talking like that is the slightest bit appropriate in front of a 7 year old young lady" Rachel sighed.

Rachel had always loved Jess very much however she always had been very wild and Rachel seemed to be always telling her off for something or other whenever she was round

"Sorry won't happen again, it's just a very accurate adjective to describe him sometimes" Jess said and Rachel had to try very hard to stop her lips curling "we ended up having this massive fight because I stayed out a tiny bit later than we agreed, and his girlfriend of all people started having a right go at me, she soda a load of horrible stuff to me honestly Rach you would have booted her if you'd heard her"

"I'm sure I wouldn't have Jess"

"Anyway me and her ended up having this massive argument and she was being a complete bitch to me and dad took her side and basically told me to leave and I said I wasn't leaving Millie so I told me to take her too..."

"Now are you sure that's the truth in can hardly imagine your dad saying that"

"Well he did that's why I'm here"

"Oh why do you always finish up in situations like this Jess" Rachel sighed "honestly what am I going to do with you"

"Well can we stay or not, if not I'm sure I'll be able to text one of my friends and they'll let me stay round there's"

"You're 13 years old Jessica I'm not having you wandering the streets, though believe me when I say first thing tomorrow morning me and your dad are going to be having a very long talk about all this"

"That's cool, he'll only say what I've said" Jess said "so what we doing about sleeping, have you done up the spare rooms or should we just crash on the sofa"

"Well obviously I haven't done up the spare rooms on account of the fact you I didn't have any notice of your sudden arrival, but no you won't just crash on the sofa I'll go an do up two of the spare rooms"

"Its mad how many rooms you have in this house it's like a hotel"

"Well they soon go don't they" Rachel remarked "Millie you look shattered love come on we'll get you to bed, Jess put some tv on I'll be down in a sec"

Millie followed her auntie upstairs and Rachel quickly made the beds up in the spare rooms"

"We won't bother with a bath tonight, and I think we'll unpack your stuff in the morning, just get changed love"

Rachel went through Millie's stuff and quickly handed her some pyjamas

"Nip to the bathroom to get yourself sorted for bed"

Millie went to the bathroom and quickly got ready before brushing her teeth and going back to the bedroom

"Come on then love into bed"

Millie got in and started falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow

Rachel gave her a kiss goodnight before going out and back down

"Can I get you a drink of anything Jess?"

"Can of cider would be nice"

"Oh yeah I'll just go and fetch you one right now young lady, never mind the fact your 5 years underage!"

"Yeah like anyone sticks to that"

"Well I very much hope my thirteen year old niece does"

Rachel and Jess chatted for a bit but then went up to bed. Rachel already felt exhausted but then you always did when you'd been with Jess for any length of time.

Please review xxxxxxx


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was the Sunday morning and Rachel woke early, she suddenly remembered all that had happened the night before and the fact she now had Jess and Millie at her house. It didn't take her long to wake herself up a bit and when she did she jumped straight in the shower.

Rachel always enjoyed her showers first thing on the morning as it was a hour the only time in the day were she properly got to relax however even this was quite short lived when you had children with you and sure enough a few minutes later ivy came barging in.

She jumped when she saw her coming in to the bathroom and quickly turned the shower off and wrapped the towel that she had draping over the top of the shower door round herself.

"Ivy what's are you doing in here" Rachel asked

"I'm sorry but I think Millie's in the bathroom and I have to go to the toilet, so please can I go in here?"

"Yes quickly, just knock next time please"

"I did knock but you didn't hear me"

Rachel rolled her eyes. She waited until Ivy had got up and gone out before finishing off her shower, however now that she knew everyone else was up as well, it was a lot harder to just relax as she felt like she needed to be up to make sure everything was okay and her house wasn't going to finish up trashed.

Once she'd finished in the shower she brushed her teeth before getting her dressing gown and wrapping it round herself before putting a towel over her hair.

She went across the landing and into Jess's room first but saw she was still fast asleep, as was holly, she was quite glad about this as it meant at least she'd get a bit of peace and quiet even if it was only for half an hour or so.

She presumed that Millie and ivy had gone back to bed for now too, as she hadn't heard anything form them, so she decided not to risk going into their rooms in case she woke them up.

Carefully Rachel tiptoed down hoping she wouldn't wake anybody, as she wanted to at least get breakfast sorted before the kids got up.

However when she was about half way down the stairs she heard the tv was on quite loudly in the living room.

Rachel sighed, she might have known having half an hour to herself on a morning was a little too much to ask when she had four kids staying with her.

She walked downstairs and slowly opened the living room door

When she saw ivy and Millie cuddled up together on the sofa she couldn't help but smile a bit, they really did look very cute

"Good morning girls" Rachel said

As soon as Millie saw her auntie she ran over and gave her a big cuddle

Rachel lifted her up in her arms and kissed her on the forehead

"Ah that's a nice good morning, I wish I got that off ivy and holly every day, but Ivy's always very grumpy on a morning aren't you love"

"No" ivy protested

"Auntie Rachel why do you have a towel over your head?" Millie asked giggling a bit

"Well because I've just been in the shower so my hairs all wet, why does it look a bit funny?"

Millie nodded her head still giggling

"Well I'll be taking it off in a couple of minutes anyway" Rachel said "right so what do the two of you want for breakfast"

"Pancakes" ivy said instantly

"Darling you can't just have pancakes every day, don't you fancy some nice fruit or something?" Rachel asked, however she knew she was fighting a loosing battle here as trying to get ivy to eat any sort of fruit was near enough impossible

"No"

"Fine but I'm not going to do pancakes tomorrow, their way too much hassle"

Rachel then went into the kitchen and started making pancakes for everyone and called them through a while later

The two of them sat down at the table and started tucking in straight away

"Ivy eat slowly, you're not in a race and there's plenty there anyway, honestly you're going to make yourself sick if you eat them that quickly"

The three of them sat in silence for a while, as everyone continued to ear

"Auntie Rachel, do I have to go home today?" Millie asked suddenly sounding a bit upset as she remembered what her auntie had said about ringing her dad up today

"I would have thought so love, I'll need to have a chat with your dad about it, but I'm sure he'll want you home quite soon love"

Millie didn't say anything for a while as she felt really upset and scared at the thought of going home, especially when things weren't very good at home at all at the moment

"Auntie Rachel please can me and Jess just stay here for a bit?" She asked

"Well that's up to your dad really love, and I'm sure he's missing you an awful lot, he must feel a bit lonely without you"

Suddenly Millie's eyes started to fill with tears and she had to run out of the room

Ivy started to get up to go after her but Rachel quickly stopped her thinking the last thing Millie would want was ivy there when she was feeling all upset

"Ivy love, you just stay here and I'll have a quick word with Millie okay?"

"But she's upset" ivy pointed out

"I know she is darling but the thing is when you're upset it can be a bit embarrassing if there's loads of people around you, like you probably would want all your friends there when you're feeling all upset would you?"

"No I suppose not"

"You finish your pancakes then and I'll have a little chat with Millie"

"Okay" ivy said

Rachel smiled at her before going Into the living room to look for Millie however she wasn't in there.

Rachel began to get a bit worried when she couldn't find her anywhere downstairs so ran up and started looking frantically round upstairs

Eventually she found her looking all upset and frightened in the playroom

Rachel quickly went over and crouched down beside her and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear

"Hey Millie, what's wrong?" She asked

"Nothing" Millie mumbled

Rachel sighed before sitting down next to her on the sofa

"You can tell me you know, I'm not going to tell anyone else if you don't want me to"

"I just really don't want to go home"

"Why not" Rachel asked

She was getting a bit worried now, as normally Millie could always talk to her quite easily about things and would never really bottle things up, so it was getting Rachel concerned that Millie obviously didn't want to tell her about this as it made her think maybe there was something more serious going on

When Millie didn't answer her and just stared at the ground Rachel put her arm around her

"Is something a big nasty going on at home at the moment?" She asked gently

Millie eventually looked up and made eye contact with Rachel and gave a little nod

"And is it making you feel a little bit frightened and worried?"

"Yes" Millie mumbled

"Well do you want to know, what the very worst thing is that you can do when you're feeling like that is?"

"What"

"Keeping it to yourself, there's nothing wrong with feeling a bit scared and worried, everyone feels like that sometimes my love, I know I certainly do, but the thing is if you don't tell anybody how you're feeling it's only going to make everything seem even more scary and even more worrying to you, and we can't have a little girl all upset can we?"

"No"

"So how about we close this door in here so nobody can hear us and then me and you can have a good chat about it all and I'll try and work out what the best thing is to do. The thing is Millie I can't help or make anything seem better for you or Jess if I don't know what's going on"

"Okay, but only if you promise you won't tell anyone"

"I do promise love, and when do I ever break my promises?"

"Never" Millie admitted

It was true her auntie was the one person she really did trust with things and she'd never known her to break her promises before

"Well there you go then" Rachel said smiling slightly

She got up from the sofa and closed the toy room door before going and sitting back next to Millie

"Just take your time love, I'm listening and we're not in any rush at all, we can sit up here all morning if we have to"

Millie cuddled into her auntie properly before deciding she could trust her enough to tell her

"Me and Jess can't go home, nobody likes us there anymore. Daddy's girlfriend didn't get mad at Jess yesterday, she was only saying that because I didn't want her to tell you what really happened because then I was scared that you'd get mad at me and shout, but Jess doesn't mind if people shout at her so she said it was about her"

"Oh love whatever this is, I'm sure I would have got mad about it, especially when it didn't happen at my house or anything like that, I'd have just wanted to help if you were feeling a bit upset, but I definitely don't want you to feel frightened of me. I don't try and come across as scary you know love, I've never really got mad at you before have I?"

"Well no except that Time when you found me playing on the road when I was staying at yours when I was really little, you got quite mad then" Millie reminded her

"Oh yeah I remember that actually, but that was just because I was so worried about you my love, I'd never normally get like that you know, so how about telling me why you were in trouble the other day, I promise I won't get mad"

"I didn't mean to get in trouble, I just went out with my friend and we finished up getting really muddy and we were being really loud on the streets so this lady took me home and told dad's girlfriend about it and then she got really mad and she started shouting at me loads and said lots of bad words that I can't tell you, but then when my dad came home she started making up all these lies about me and Jess and she told him Jess had stolen some money from her and then he got mad and told us to leave"

Rachel was shocked when she heard all of this, she couldn't believe just how horrid her brothers girlfriend really sounded. She'd met her before on a few occasions and they'd never particularly got on but she couldn't imagine her doing anything like this.

"Oh love, it sounds like you had a horrible time of it"

"So you're not angry"

"Of course I'm not Millie, to be honest with you it doesn't sound like you did a lot wrong, things just sometimes get blown out of proportion don't they" Rachel sighed "look you've done completely the right thing telling me about it okay and I promise we're going to work something out"

"Do I have to go back?"

"probably not today love, I'm going to have a talk with your dad now and we're going to try and work something out okay, but i don't want you worrying about it"

"Okay" Millie said

Rachel then gave her a quick cuddle before reaching for the phone

"How about you go downstairs with ivy, she's been worried about you, watch some tv or something, I'm just going to have a little chat with your dad"

Millie would have liked to stay and listen to what Rachel was saying to her dad however she did as her auntie had said and went downstairs with ivy.

She was very restless though and kept going upstairs to see if her auntie had finished on the phone

When at last she had she went into see her straight away

"What did he say auntie Rachel? I don't have to go back today do I?"

"No love, look I think we all need to sit down and have a chat about this, so I'm going to go and wake your sister up okay, I won't be a second"

Rachel went into Jess's room, where her niece was still fast asleep.

"Jess wake up" Rachel said

When she didn't get a response she tried to stir her awake

Jess seemed to stir a little bit however then she finished up going straight back to sleep.

Rachel sighed and continued to shake her awake

"Go away" Jess screamed before pulling her covers over her head and curling up into a ball

"Jess I need to speak to you and Millie, it's about you staying here"

"Well I'm not going to be staying here much longer anyway if you're going to be waking me up this early in the morning"

"Jess it is 9 o clock, it's not as if I've got you up at the crack of dawn"

After a lot of moaning Jess did eventually get up but kept her quilt wrapped firmly round her

"For gods sake Jess it's not the middle of winter get that thing off"

"No and I'll just go back to bed if you carry on annoying me"

"Hey less of the attitude please"

"Shut up"

"Jess I mean it, this is your last warning"

"Before what exactly? You put me on the naughty step" she said giggling slightly now

"Something like that yes, or maybe I'll just take your phone off you for the next week now go and sit in there with your sister"

Jess went and say down next to Millie however she still had a bit of a scowl on her face

"Right now me and your dad have had a good chat about everything"

"Oh and I bet he's told you a load of bullshit that isn't even true at all and we'll have to go back because obviously you believe him over us even though he's a little liar"

"Would you just shut that big mouth of yours for two seconds Jess, and if I have to tell you once more about language I really will take your phone off you young lady"

Jess rolled her eyes and sighed but decided not to say anything else

"Right now after I've spoken to your dad, we've both decided it's best if you stay here with me for a few weeks while everything settles down at home. So I'm more than happy to have you stay here with me for a while, as long as your happy to stay here"

"I want to stay here" Millie said instantly

"Jess?" Rachel asked

"Yeah I guess I want to stay too, well as long as you don't go waking me up this early every morning"

"Well it'll be a lot earlier than this tomorrow morning I'm afraid young lady, you have got school remember"

"What I still have to go to school, even though I'm not at home"

"Well of course you do, I'm hardly going to let you skive off am I?" Rachel sighed

"But my schools about 20 minutes away"

"Well then we're going to have to leave the house a Bit earlier then aren't we?"

Jess rolled her eyes again not looking forward to school tomorrow already, as she hadn't done any of her homework as she'd just presumed that she'd be allowed a day off

"And you can stop rolling your eyes at me too, don think I can't see it, I'm a teacher I have eyes at the back of my head remember"

"Alright there's no need to get all snappy"

"You're one to talk Jess" Rachel said

Jess was about to get up and leave however Rachel stopped her

"Hang on a minute mrs, I think we need to set some basic rules now you're going to be living with me for a while"

"For gods sake, what is this, prison?"

"Hardly Jess, it's just to make sure we're clear on a few things"

Reluctantly Jess went and sat back down next to her sister and decided to listen to what her auntie had to say

"Right so firstly I don't want any bad language at all in this house, it's completely inappropriate when we have little girls around. Secondly I don't want to have to tell you off for being cheeky or disrespectful anymore, I don't want you to be blasting that music round my house either. Also if you go out I want you to be back in by 9 unless we've agreed otherwise"

"Right can I go now"

"Yep"

Jess got up and started walking out

"Oh and before I forget on a school night Millie you can go to bed 15 minutes later than ivy so that'll be 8:15 and Jess I want you in bed at 9:30"

"You're seriously going to tell me what time I should be going to bed" Jess said appalled "I'm 13 years old auntie Rachel"

"Exactly so you're still a child aren't you? And when you are a child living in my house, you'll live by my rules okay?"

Jess didn't say anything and stomped off back to her room.

The day seemed to pass quite quickly after that as all the girls seemed to have something to do to keep them occupied.

Once Rachel had out ivy to bed she went downstairs and sat with Millie

"Auntie Rachel, please can I have something to drink before I go to bed?"

"Yes of course sweetie, how about some hot chocolate?"

"Yes please"

Rachel went into the kitchen to make her some before bringing it back into the living room

Once they'd finished it Rachel took Millie up to bed

"I'm just going to go to the bathroom to get Into my pyjamas and everything"

"Okay love, I'll wait in your room for you"

Once Millie was finished Rachel tucked her up in bed

"Are you nice and comfy"

"Yes thank you"

"Okay well I'll leave the light on for 10 minutes then it's sleep time, but if you need anything during the night just get up or find me if you need to"

"Night auntie Rachel"

"Night and god bless my love"

Although Millie had felt really tired, as soon as Rachel left she suddenly started to feel all lonely and frightened and had a little cry to herself.

Millie never had been very good at coping with change of any description and was finding everything a bit tough at the moment.

A few hours later when Rachel went up to bed, she went to check on all the girls and noticed that Millie didn't look like she was asleep

She went and crouched down next to her before whispering "Millie are you still awake"

Millie knew there was no point pretending so opened her eyes

"I'm sorry auntie Rachel I couldn't sleep"

"Oh dear, have you been awake all this time"

Millie nodded her head in response looking a bit tearful. Rachel felt really sorry for her and wrapped her arms around her lovingly

"You should have came to see me love, I hate to think of you all alone"

"I didn't want to annoy you" she said

"Oh you wouldn't have been annoying me at all love, it's not like I've been doing anything important, just sat in front of the tv with a glass of wine" Rachel said smiling "is there something on your mind?"

"No, I just couldn't sleep"

"Well it's no wonder really, you'll just be feeling a bit unsettled I imagine, I know I would be "

"I don't want to go home though" Millie said quickly in case this was what her auntie was thinking

"No darling I know you don't, it's just that everything seems so strange at the moment doesn't it"

"Yeah, it feels weird not being in my own room"

"Well this room isn't really right for a little girl, I'll tell you what seeing as your going to be staying with me for a while how about after school tomorrow we go into town together and we'll get some stuff for it, we can paint it too, it needs a bit of a makeover anyway"

"Really, we can actually change it" Millie said sounding excited now

"Of course, we need to make things as homely as possible for you don't we?"

"Thanks auntie Rachel"

"That's alright love, now are you feeling any sleepier yet?"

"Yes a little bit"

"I'll stay with you until you fall asleep then darling"

Rachel flicked the light off and started stroking Millie's hair, unsurprisingly within a matter of minutes she'd fallen fast asleep and was snoring gently.

Please review xxxxxxx


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